


Beg For You to Let Me In

by citysins



Category: Glee
Genre: 16 but age of consent, Age Difference, Alternate Universe, Daddy Kink, M/M, Unconventional Relationship, age disparity, age kink, mentions of abuse, mentions of trauma, previous character death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-10-27
Updated: 2012-03-25
Packaged: 2017-10-25 00:13:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 45,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/269482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/citysins/pseuds/citysins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blaine created a safe place for LGBTQ teenagers with Courage House. When Kurt Hummel becomes a resident, all of the rules change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This started as a fill for a prompt on the glee_kink_meme; the prompt can be found [here](http://glee-kink-meme.livejournal.com/10780.html?thread=17363484#t17363484). We went in a very different direction from the prompt, ultimately, but at its core there are a lot of the same elements. Finally, we want to thank every single person who followed along on the meme and commented. We know that this fic's subject matter might not be up everyone's alley, and we appreciate that so many people gave us a chance anyway. <3 Thank you to mcollinknight for the beta.

\--

The first time he kisses Kurt Hummel, it uproots everything.

After an agonizing moment, Blaine wonders if he's made a horrible mistake; Kurt's eyes are lowered, looking just below Blaine's line of sight, his lips soft and parted. Kurt isn't moving. He isn't reacting at all. Blaine takes a breath in -- long after his lungs ask for air -- and immediately puts space between them, moving back from Kurt as his hands fall to his sides, useless and apologetic.

Kurt's still as a statue, face arrested in shock. It's the first time in a long time that Blaine has seen this Kurt -- the one who'd been quiet and drawn and entirely inside of himself when he first came to Courage House. Over the weeks, Blaine's been working on pulling him out, marking personal victories with every raised eyebrow and unfettered laugh. Months of work, and he's probably traumatized him right back to where he started. Kurt looks lost again, and Blaine doesn't know how to begin to apologize.

"Oh, Kurt." His lips feel like they're _stinging_ , venomous, and he wants to rub at them to erase all traces of his mistake. "I'm so sorry."

It was past curfew when this whole thing started, but Kurt likes to stay up and read in the living room and Blaine lets him. The first time, he found Kurt curled up with feet tucked up under him, his chin resting on his palm, and he looked so small (ridiculous, given that Kurt, long-limbed and posture ruler-straight, is taller than Blaine) and vulnerable, but _content_ , an expression minted brand new on his face, well. Blaine had to let him have that small thing. Kurt looked so guilty and panicked when he'd noticed Blaine watching. That was the first time they'd stayed up, talking so hushed that the sound of the old grandfather clock Blaine inherited ticking along seemed to drown them out.

Now, Kurt was so used to their late nights he casually, almost instinctively, tucked himself close to Blaine on the couch, like he was turning into Blaine for shelter. God. He didn't know what he'd been thinking. Kurt had sought and found protection in Blaine, found a mentor, a fucking _father figure_ , and Blaine's mind had projected some kind of _Lolita_ fantasy onto his blind trust. He's basically secured himself a place in hell.

Blaine's voice seems to have jarred Kurt back to life. He hears him huff out a shaky breath, and Blaine braces himself for whatever reaction Kurt's going to have, knowing it will tear at him, savage him like grief, because the Kurt he's come to know is likely going to disappear.

Kurt still doesn't look at him, but a pale hand lifts from its prim position on his lap, and Blaine, in his white dress shirt with its sleeves rolled up to his elbows in an attempt at comfortable, feels a warm palm come to rest on his bare forearm.

"It's okay," Kurt says, in a quiet but remarkably steady voice. He sounds so young, and Blaine wants to close his eyes at what that inspires in him, a mixture of feeling protective and charmed.

Blaine isn't like this with anyone else. He's never once touched someone who looks like Kurt, or wanted to. The idea of kissing any other of the boys at the house is repulsive. Blaine thought he was normal. All of his boyfriends were tall and masculine; none of them looked like they belonged in choir robes or a freaking doll catalog.

He sits, Kurt's hand on his arm. Blaine is waiting for clarification, for something, and Kurt's hand squeezes gently in reassurance. But when Kurt's eyes flick up to him, bright and peering deliberately from under the wisps of his lashes, Blaine understands Kurt is offering more than forgiveness.

"You can kiss me if you want to," Kurt continues, and Blaine doesn't know where that stunned boy from thirty seconds ago disappeared to, but he's been replaced with Kurt; imperious, talented, and compassionate Kurt. He's leaning into Blaine, their knees are touching, and Blaine's breath hitches in his chest. "I want you to."

Holy shit.

His bewilderment must show on his face, because Kurt smiles a little, barely teasing, and it makes his cheeks look warm and pink. Before Blaine knows it, the backs of his knuckles are brushing over Kurt's face.

Blaine opens his mouth only to snap it shut again, and just like that Kurt breaks out into a set of giggles. His eyes are so bright and enthralled that Blaine can only lean back in and kiss him again, take his face into his palms and press his lips into Kurt's smile.

His skin is so soft, the plush of his lips even softer, and he insistently nudges his face into Blaine's, mouth parting wide for him in an invitation. Blaine's still caught on the part where Kurt's hand is on him, burning like a brand, and Kurt not shrinking back from him like he rightfully should be. Instead he's clumsily but determinedly brushing their lips together, the flicker of his tongue a wet suggestion. Blaine hasn't been kissed like this in a long time; normally he's in control, normally he doesn't have a seventeen year old giving him a kiss so wholehearted it's painful.

When he pulls away the second time, they both chuckle. "I don't do this," Blaine says quietly, like he needs to clarify his intentions. His thumb is rubbing slow circles right under the line of Kurt's jaw.

One of Kurt's eyebrows quirk up insolently, and he doesn't even need to say it, but he does anyway. "Right. Never."

"I just... " Blaine tries, but he can't even draw up an apology or excuse. "You're one of kind, Kurt Hummel."

Kurt's lips tilt up at the corners, and he shrugs. The resulting expression is much more wry than flattered. "People have been making exceptions for me all of my life," he tells Blaine.

"Can you make one for me?" It isn't what Blaine thinks he's going to say, but it's what comes out, soft and hesitant like their roles have reversed.

Kurt's eyes are almost unreadable, laced with layers of thought, and Blaine wonders how this boy got to be so damn wise. He knows it's from the spaces between being bullied, kicked out and disadvantaged, and it leaves his body muted with awe to think that Kurt stands so tall on the other side. Blaine counts himself lucky that he was able to help in any small measure; that Courage House gave Kurt the space to come back to himself.

Out of all of the emotions that play over his face, the one that wins out is unexpectedly challenging. Kurt's neck is flushed and his hands are unsteady as they start to gloss hesitantly over Blaine's thigh, but when he lines his lips up with Blaine's ear, his breath is heady.

"Why should I?" Kurt whispers.

Whatever Blaine was hoping for or expecting when he threw every ounce of his own sanity out the window and kissed Kurt, it wasn't this. Kurt's just as sweet and untrained as he'd imagined (when he'd guiltily let himself), but Blaine had somehow forgotten how Kurt staked out a claim on everything he did. His refusal to do what was expected of him is the reason he he's here in the first place, and a lot of why Blaine's palms are itching to learn what he's like under his craftily thrifted sweaters and the layers underneath them.

"God, I don't know," Blaine says, way too honest and laughing in disbelief. He can barely think. Kurt's right there and his breath is so close, warm and borderline ticklish against Blaine's neck and ear. "You probably shouldn't. This is stupid. You're..." He pulls back enough to look at Kurt and weigh the situation, and Kurt has seriously got to stop it with his eyes and his skin and the wavering curl of a smile he's wearing, happy but like he's trying really hard to contain it.

He's about to give up on speech and go in for another kiss, his fingers already curling to guide Kurt into it, when the grandfather clock in the hall breaks into its hourly Westminster Chime. Normally, quiet enough for the kids in the bedrooms to sleep through, in the calm closeness of the living room, it's downright cacophonous. Blaine startles and pulls his hands away from Kurt entirely, his body shrinking back into the cushions of the couch.

They're in the _living room_. Anyone could pass by on their way to the kitchen for a glass of water. Michael never sleeps through the night; he's walked by Kurt and Blaine talking or reading close together on more than one occasion. He's never looked askance or given more than a sleepy hello as he passed, but what they're doing right now is impossible to ignore. It's unmistakable.

Kurt looks spooked by the clock too, ripped from the same moment Blaine was. His eyes are wide.

"You should go to bed," Blaine says suddenly. "I -- you have school tomorrow."

He blinks at Blaine in bewilderment. "You..." he sounds out slowly, tilting his head. "Okay?"

Blaine feels like he's being watched, a set of suspicious and dangerous eyes are pinning him. It makes him uncomfortable, but he's still dizzy with what they have just done. He put his hands on Kurt Hummel, who reels him in just by existing. He can't help himself; he presses his thumb to the apple of Kurt's cheek, watching the flesh barely yield to the slight pressure.

He leans in for one last chaste and quick kiss, trying to bat down the paranoid and awful feeling squirming around in his stomach for taking the liberty where anyone could see. Kurt inhales sharply in surprise but kisses back. He just -- _leans_ into Blaine and makes it that much sweeter.

"Sleep, okay?" Blaine says, once he's gotten it out of his system, his hands are safely back on his own lap, and he feels manageably less like he wants to pull Kurt on top of him.

"You too," Kurt says with another one of his soft half-smiles, gracefully pulling back and automatically straightening his sweater. He grabs the book he was reading before Blaine came and sat next to him, and stands up in one smooth motion. If he's a little unsteady on his feet, Blaine doesn't let it get to him.

He's so fucking lovely.

He watches Kurt walk away after a quiet and lingering "goodnight, Blaine," feeling his chest go tight with some unnameable emotion.

\--

Blaine manages to fall asleep that night, but by five-thirty his dreams are so restless and uneasy they drag him up from unconsciousness. He's sweaty, a little, and his bedroom seems inordinately bright from streetlights of the sidewalk outside, so he shoves the covers off and pulls on a robe.

He has bills to sort, and a charity dinner to plan, and his own thoughts to drown out by throwing himself into either or both, but all he can do is stand in the kitchen and blearily make coffee. Blaine's usually up at quarter to seven, so he isn't totally off his schedule, but with the night he had and his unsettling dreams, he's not quite himself.

Charlie isn't due in until after everyone gets back from school, and Blaine really, really wishes he hadn't decided to take day shifts four out of his six-day work week (averaging sixty hours now, but he _lives_ where he works, no matter if the lease on his studio apartment says otherwise). Sometimes the time he has to run the logistical side of the business seems filled to the brim and strained, not enough, and sometimes he feels like he's wandering through the house with nothing to do except dust. His plate for today is full, but his head isn't where it needs to be to get anything done.

Blaine ultimately busies himself with the bill pile, and it's a good thing they've got that drive coming up, because stretching their budget to cover all of the numbers is strangling his stomach in a tense fist. He thinks about putting an ad out for volunteers, but the track record with those has been so abysmal it's depressing. Most of the fresh-faced do-gooders who come in, directed from the Pride Center or even the Yellow Pages, are filled with sympathy or righteousness. These poor GLBT teens, abandoned and ostracized, they just need someone to _accept_ them, to comfort them and teach them that they're special. Maybe they'll give them a few art therapy lessons.

The truth is, most of the kids at Courage House are assholes. Blaine loves them, but no amount of acceptance and coddling can erase the fact that they're traumatized and angry and often put holes in the wall that he sighs at and repairs himself. Domestic and sexual abuse and bullying are disturbingly common elements of their stories, half of them are barely passing their classes, and Blaine's lost count of the amount of times they've screamed at him, called him a fucking faggot - irony, there - or worse. Blaine's not doing this to be some sort of mentor, though that's nice when he gets the chance. He's doing it because business school sucked, and he hated it almost as much as he hated his father for essentially press-ganging him into it. He's doing it for less self-centered reasons, too; being gay in Ohio sucks, and being gay and homeless and having no one is unimaginably worse.

He's had no less than ten volunteers run wan-faced out the door not long after coming through it. Marie lasted a year, but she moved back to New Jersey to get her nursing degree, and Blaine can't fault her for that. He's tired of doing this, of wearing so many hats - counselor, teacher, accountant, emotional punching bag and whatever else - but he wouldn't give it up. His staff and occasional part-timer work almost as hard as he does.

Michael typically gets up when Blaine does, or before, and today's one of the latter. He blinks to find Blaine in the kitchen in his robe and sweats with papers fanned out like cards in front of him and a coffee mug making rings on one of them, but he doesn't say anything and pokes around in the fridge.

Blaine makes breakfast when somebody wants it, but usually they grab Poptarts or generic granola bars on their way out the door. Kurt helps him, sometimes; he makes a mean Eggs Benedict, and literally shoos Blaine out of the way so he won't inadvertently mess it up by trying to help. He makes his own, and recently started packing his own lunches too, once Blaine let him know it was okay. He has enough in the budget to pay for Kurt's sandwiches and quiches and array of vegetables that he carefully portions and keeps in ziplock bags, or anything else the kids might want.

He has to not think about Kurt.

He turns to Michael, who is leaning against the kitchen counter with a chipped mug of coffee and a plain waffle in his other hand. Blaine's just _so_ good at encouraging healthy habits. He remembers wistfully when he used to at least try. "Anything exciting happening today?" he asks.

Michael shrugs, looking down at his mug. Blaine likes to think they have at least a tentative bond; Michael actually talks to him, as opposed to the stony silence he maintains around the other exmployees. "I have a math test."

"Did you study?"

Michael shoots him a look. "No, because I'm really looking forward to repeating eleventh grade."

Blaine waves a half-hearted fist. "Go team." Michael smiles the smallest amount and turns back to the sink to dump the rest of his coffee out. He's already dressed, reminding Blaine that he's got laundry to do. "Good luck."

"Thanks. I'm going to watch TV." He disappears around the corner to settle in the living room and watch God knows what.

Tracy's up half an hour later, and the sun's flirting with making an appearance; the house feels less dim and sleepy with the beginnings of light. She's still in her pajamas, and Blaine quickly finds out why.

"Can you _please_ tell Kurt that he has no freaking business taking fifteen minute showers when my name is on the bathroom board?" she snipes. "Some of us enjoy hot water."

Blaine would normally laugh and promise her an extra ten minutes to make up for it, but Kurt keeps popping up and stalling his thoughts. "Sure." He's got a little while before Kurt gets dressed and comes into the kitchen, and he should possibly start planning for when that happens. What he's going to say. How he's going to be able to look at Kurt without panicking. "I'm going to get dressed," he says. "Try not to shank anybody."

The shower is perfunctory and distracted. He vacillates between deciding what to wear and coming up with half-baked ideas about what to say to Kurt. Apologies, explanations, stern it-can't-happen-agains, I don't care what your mouth tastes like or how you look at mes. He picks out slacks and a button down with a cardigan, and he feels uncomfortably under-dressed for the ask at hand. Today is a casual day, he reminds himself. No need for a suit.

Predictably, when he steps out of his room, Kurt is fussing around in the kitchen, and Blaine's sight hones in on him immediately. He's -- well, dressed up. He doesn't have much, and what he does have he carefully searches for and cherishes. He saves his nicer pieces for the weekends, after the paragons of humanity at McKinley slushied him out of two shirts. Kurt never said a word; Blaine found out by accident, when he walked in on Kurt futilely spot-cleaning one of them, a streak of cherry red slushie sticky behind his ear. Blaine had flipped out on the principal and the slushying had apparently stopped, but Kurt's paranoia had already set in and wasn't relenting.

But this morning he's got on his nicest shirt and a scarf Blaine is amazed to realize is actual silk, wrapped meticulously around his neck. His pants are very tight, and his hair is impeccable. Blaine hadn't thought anything of it the first time he noticed Kurt was pretty. It was just an observation, and he didn't really know Kurt at the time; he was just this reserved boy who seemed to hate the sound of his own voice. Once he _knew_ Kurt, his pretty, pale face and graceful - if surprisingly sturdy - arms were simply a part of him.

The way he looks at Blaine, the way he turns around and smiles, is wrenching.

Blaine wants him so fucking badly it makes him ache.

"Good morning," Kurt says, and it isn't his usual cheery tone, but a shy and happy murmur that makes Blaine's hands clench at his sides.

"Morning," Blaine echoes, and it turns out that that quiet, secret thrill has crept into his voice, too. He goes for a refill on his cup of coffee, trying to step back into the path of a normal morning routine. "Did you sleep well?"

Kurt makes a muffled noise, somewhere between mirth and surprise, and only then does Blaine read into the question.

"I mean-- when you slept. Was it..." He closes his mouth and pours sugar into the cup. "Good morning, Kurt."

Kurt looks amused. "Can I get you something to eat?" he asks, and it's nothing he hasn't offered dozens of times before, but it feels as illicit as Kurt's tongue did in his mouth last night. Blaine's stomach tightens.

"Only if you're eating too, please," he says, sure and steady only at the thought of one of the other kids walking in on them. Walking in on them talking about _breakfast_. Blaine closes his eyes for a half-second and resigns himself to fumbling his way through the rest of the day.

"Sure," Kurt chirps, like it would be his pleasure. He always manages to pull something together out of limited and boring resources, and Blaine is only halfway through his coffee refill when Kurt's hand is on his shoulder, pushing him towards a chair and setting a bowl of oatmeal and raspberries in front of him.

"You can't skip out on breakfast if you're going to keep up with us," Kurt explains, taking a seat across from him. "You're not getting any younger, you know."

"Oh, trust me, sweetheart; I know," Blaine says wearily, but not without humor. He speaks to all of his kids with affection -- they're all he has, really -- but in the course of one night, the boundaries between him and Kurt have shifted drastically. The desire to take it back is there as soon as he's said it, but instead he issues himself a light mental reprimand and eats his breakfast. He'll have to step more carefully if he's going to keep from messing everything up.

"It's okay." It's supposed to be reassuring, but with the way that Kurt's smiling at him, it just sounds fond. His elbows are propped up on the table, hands folded under his chin. "We can't all have youth, sex appeal, and limitless opportunity on our side. Eventually we all succumb to creaking bones and--" Kurt sighs dramatically. His eyes pointedly flick up to Blaine's hairline. "Gray hair."

Blaine's hand flies to his head, caught between laughter and affront. "I don't have gray hair! Look, it's still black, through and through." He crooks his neck awkwardly as if a different angle will give Kurt a better perspective. He might have noticed a few gray strands creeping in towards his temples, but it's all the kids' fault, anyway.

Kurt's wide grin is rare, special. "And with age comes delusion," he says, teasing and sing-song, as he rises to collect Blaine's dishes and deposit them in the sink. Most mornings he takes the time to wash them, but their conversation has pushed them behind schedule and the school bus will be pulling up to the curb at any moment.

Blaine watches his bowl disappear as Tracy shuffles back in, wrestling her backpack on. "Our limo awaits," she proclaims. One of her shoes is still untied, but Blaine is happy that she's up and going to school at all. Michael is likely already waiting out on the sidewalk.

Kurt settles his messenger bag primly on his shoulder, coffee thermos in hand. "Shall we begin today with champagne or cocktails?" he asks as he offers her his free arm.

"I'd kill for a margarita," Tom adds from the doorway, flashing Kurt a grin as he brushes past him, last minute as always.

"No drinking," Blaine says automatically, out of obligation. "But if you're going to, don't do it on an empty stomach. And don't drive. And don't leave your glass unattended or accept drinks from strangers." He pauses, eyebrows knitting together. "Am I forgetting anything?"

"Just your youth," Kurt offers as a parting shot, his expression as angelic as ever.

Blaine makes an undignified noise and wordlessly gestures them all out of the house. The bus is waiting at the curb, and Blaine watches them walk toward it, everyone saddled with backpacks but Kurt. "Have a great day, and don't take any detours." Tom doesn't have detention for the first time in a while, which is a relief. Last time he got suspended for _skipping_ said detention, and Social Services gets really bent out of shape over little things like that – although unfortunately for Tom, not nearly as bent as Blaine gets.

He closes the door and heads back to the kitchen table. He feels too revived and unsettled by the conversation with Kurt to keep working, so he goes to scoop up the bills and put them in their file. He's trying to flick the one piece of paper with the coffee stain on it completely dry when he hears the front door open and shut again.

It's Kurt, which Blaine knew from some instinctual place that made his skin tighten and his breath stop in anticipation. "Did you leave something?" he asks over his shoulder, forcing the question to sound casual.

His lips are parted, but he says nothing, walking toward Blaine with a quick stride that somehow seems as though it's in slow-motion. Blaine knows it's coming. Kurt telegraphs it, the room _hums_ with intent, but he finds himself unable to stop it, feet cemented to the floor in his Oxfords.

Kurt's body is up against his in the space of a second, his arms coming to wind behind Blaine's neck, the thermos making it momentarily awkward. Of their own volition, Blaine's hands come up to cradle Kurt's face again, but he just keeps them there, torn between premonition, hope, and caution. The boy's belt buckle presses into his stomach, and he can feel Kurt's every intake of breath. This kiss is Kurt's, his mouth pushing and pushing, so demanding Blaine can't help but open for it. Kurt's tongue slips past his lips, the kiss turning deep and slow and tender.

Kurt's so thorough, so measured, licking into him, and Blaine finds himself sweeping his hands through Kurt's hair, tugging the slightest amount, messing it from its careful styling.

Blaine isn't the one who pulls away. Kurt draws back, with a last lingering press, the quietest wet sound hanging between them. They stand there like that, Kurt's breath fluttering against Blaine's sensitive mouth.

"I," Blaine says, his hands still twined in Kurt's hair. He's so close he can't truly look at Kurt's face as a whole - just his vivid eyes, the boyish, pristine curvature of his eyebrow, the slope of his nose.

Kurt backs up, untangling them, looking overwhelmed with a mouth that has clearly been kissed and hair ruffled like a child's. The unmistakable red-pink flush is starting to creep up his neck, color his cheeks. Blaine wonders what he must look like in comparison.

"The bus is waiting," he says breathlessly. "I've got to go."

Blaine nods mutely. Kurt gives him a quavering, curiously demure smile before he leaves. Blaine's hands are shaking, faltering and disoriented without something of Kurt to touch.


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fic is still a WIP, but it's sitting at around 50,000 words with the end only barely in sight. Updates should be more frequent!

The house quiets at night when everyone shuffles off to bed or heads home, but it never manages to settle into complete silence. Some of the kids need music to fall asleep, the architecture is old and prone to creaking, and pillows can't muffle everything that happens once the lights get turned off and the teenagers are left alone.

For Blaine, the small noises fade into a comforting background hum, like a fan he needs to have on to fall asleep. The creaks and shuffles and whispers are signs that his kids are okay; that at the very least they have a safe place to sleep.

He's commandeered a room at the end of the hallway. One of the kids shattered the window a few years back, and even though he's replaced the glass, it still won't close fully. The window whistles at night and the room gets drafty, so no one else wants it -- so the room is Blaine's. He keeps an apartment a little ways away, a nice place with a queen-sized bed and plush pillows, not a college dorm-sized mattress next to a standard-issue wooden desk. Somehow, he still ends up in his bed at the house more often than not.

The floorboards outside his door let out a murmur, and Blaine shuts his eyelids. He should've been asleep an hour ago, but the last few days have burrowed under his skin, leaving phantom images and impressions. He feels Kurt's soft hands gripping his shoulders, remembers the way teeth drug across his bottom lip on one of their dozen replays of that first kiss. He thinks about Kurt tonight at dinner: his eyes scrunched up in mirth and his hand in front of his face as he tried hard not to laugh at a story Tracy was recounting.

His bedroom door opens soundlessly; it's the light that floods in from the hallway that cues his eyes to open.

Blaine is sitting up and reaching to turn on the lamp all at once, eyeballing his pants and trying to remember where his keys and phone are. His job never stops, not really, and he's learned that the things that happen after midnight are the ones that he really needs to worry about.

But there's a quiet " _sshhhh_ " from the figure in the doorway, and Kurt pushes the door shut behind him with a soft click. "It's okay; it's just me," Kurt whispers, and Blaine knows that he'll never be _just_ Kurt, but at least gets Blaine to settle back into the bed, the sudden onset of worry and alertness receding.

"Is everything all right?" Blaine asks, sounding sleep-clogged.

"I couldn't sleep." Kurt pauses, then adds, "I missed you." He pads over and takes a careful seat on the edge of Blaine's bed, as if he's poised to spring back up and out at the first indication of Blaine's disapproval. He's wearing his fussy two-piece pajama set with the buttons that march in a seemingly endless row down his chest, and he doesn't look at Blaine when he speaks. "I don't know if I couldn't sleep because I missed you, or I started missing you because I couldn't sleep, but.. " Kurt trails off, and Blaine realizes that his hand is already resting on the small of Kurt's back. "This is okay, right?" he whispers, sitting ramrod-straight.

It would be nothing short of cruel to turn him away now, Blaine knows. Blaine isn't sure where his priorities are or how it even happened; he feels worse over the idea of pulling Kurt close to him with that first stupid, stupid kiss and then trying to push him away again than he does over the kiss itself, the yellow caution tape he shouldn't have crossed. Well, some of the time. There's definitely a correlation between how guilty he feels and the amount of time he spends removed from Kurt's presence, stewing.

He edges over to the side and pulls the covers back, answering simply, "C'mere."

Kurt sinks in beside him, tension evaporating from his body as he folds his legs under the sheets and curls into Blaine's side. Blaine stretches his arm out towards Kurt, and just like that Kurt's head is pillowed on his shoulder.

Blaine drops a chaste kiss onto Kurt's crown, breathing in the clean scent of his hair. Kurt's chin is an uncomfortable point of pressure against Blaine's bony clavicle, but it means that Blaine can feel every warm puff of air that Kurt exhales. Soon it will be too hot with both of them so close under the blankets, but Blaine doesn't kick them down -- he wants to keep Kurt wrapped up safe and secure. He draws him in closer, Kurt's knee fitting in between his legs.

"As flattered as I'd feel thinking it was me that kept you up--" Blaine murmurs, absently brushing his lips across Kurt's hair, just to feel it against his lips. "I'm sure there are other things, yeah?"

Kurt's toes press into the space underneath his calf. "I still don't have friends at school. I get along with the other kids in the house, but they don't understand me. I keep telling myself that it's only a few more months, then I graduate and I can go do everything I've ever wanted to." Blaine can feel Kurt's hand flex by his hip as he tries to physically illustrate himself even while tucked in so close together. "But I guess it just gets hard, sometimes. I know, 'courage' and all that, and I'm here-- I made it this far--" His voice thickens. "I miss my dad. A lot."

"God, Kurt, if he could see you..." Blaine chest is so tight and full that he has to struggle to keep his breathing even and not jostle Kurt too much. "He'd be so _proud_. He'd just be beaming. You inspire everyone here. You've given me confidence that I'm doing the right thing with this house, with all of these kids." He leans in, forehead to forehead with Kurt. "I had options when I finished grad school. I had all the resources and credentials I needed to start climbing corporate ladders, but I wanted to make a difference. And... I sort of had something to prove to my father," Blaine admits, covert, and with a sliver of a laugh. "I wanted him to finally wash his hands clean of all the expectations he had for me. I was never going to be what he hoped. So I started Courage House, and it worked out, but then I didn't... I didn't have what I thought I would. I was still treating it like a business operation." Kurt's gaze is even with his, subdued but receptive. "Now I'm learning that it's a family, too -- that we take care of each other."

Kurt smiles at him, and it takes no thought at all for them to press their lips together, the kiss simple enough to feel wholesome. "I'm not getting back in my bed tonight," he says with the sort of endearing impudence that only a teenager can conjure.

"I think it's in my job description somewhere that I'm supposed to provide accommodations for you guys," Blaine admits with no displeasure at all. "Are you feeling accommodated?"

Kurt snuggles in closer, placing a tiny kiss over the groove of Blaine's collarbone. "It's adequate."

" _Adequate?_ Really?"

Kurt's fingertips find the hem of Blaine's t-shirt and tap along the material while he works up the nerve to take the next step. Their light tone is a veil that bare covers the true face of Blaine's imprudent happiness, and how Kurt is trying very hard not to let Blaine see that he is so apprehensive he's visibly trembling. "I have high standards."

"I'd never noticed."

Kurt giggles airily, and Blaine thinks it surprises them both when he gets enough nerve to slide his fingers under Blaine's shirt all in one swift go, teasing low across his abdomen. It's not the first time it's been done to Blaine, obviously, but it's clear it's the first time Kurt has put his hands on a man -- on anyone at all. Blaine has to work hard to keep himself in check as Kurt shakes off his hesitance and his hand grows bolder after at Blaine's lack of censure. "Well, you're not very observant."

He knows all sorts of things about Kurt. Mostly from observation, granted, though he's been surprised by the amount Kurt will casually offer up between his criticisms of television shows. Blaine knows about his mother, and his father, and the first foster home he was thrown out of. They're all facts in black and white listed in his file, but Kurt colors them every time he admits he knows how to change an alternator, or talks about his glassy-eyed, rapturous love for Patti LuPone. If asked, the other kids at Courage House would probably guess he'd been thrown out by his parents -- a reasonable assumption, as it happened to many of them. Kurt treats nearly every conversation with them like a business transaction, and no one seems to care enough to look beyond the veneer of primness and token snark. They don't know him; no one does, really. Blaine doesn't know why he's the exception. He's glad he is.

"I think it's more that someone tends to distract me," Blaine replies, wavering only a little under Kurt's fingers. His mind is finally quieting down, muscles relaxing, coaxed by the heat and pressure of Kurt's body against his.

"Did you just admit to having a short attention span?"

Blaine laughs, only to have it turn into an ungracefully wide yawn. "It's one of those things that short-circuit when you get old."

Kurt catches the yawn through happy, hazy eyes and nudges his nose against Blaine's neck. "I'm keeping you up."

"Mmm, I don't mind," he says, in case Kurt's going to change his mind and feel obligated to leave. Kurt's fingers are still brushing back and forth, tracing near his ribs, winding down as they drift. "You're comfy." He'll have to go back to his bed eventually, before sunrise at the very least, in case anyone gets up early and happens upon him still in Blaine's room, or leaving it. But sunrise is hours of sleep away.

"I drink warm milk when I can't sleep," Kurt confesses. "It's delicious."

It's _disgusting_ , but Blaine isn't about to tell Kurt that. It's also incredibly endearing, and he wonders if it's a hold-over from Kurt's childhood. "I take Tylenol PM," Blaine says.

Kurt scoffs at him, breath a sharp blast that sinks into Blaine's skin. "I hope you don't do it often; it's horrible for your liver."

Blaine's about to answer with a negative (because with the amount of time he spends running himself ragged he rarely needs the extra nudge), but Kurt's fingers, the touch that had faded to a soothing lull in the background, suddenly inch up his chest and freeze. Blaine tenses, but then he realizes -- his chest hair. It tapers to sparse and soft down his stomach, but there's a thicker, wiry patch higher up on his chest.

He's never seen Kurt in anything less than a t-shirt, and now that he's thinking about it ( _letting_ himself think about it, more like: he's determinedly shoved his mind back on track when it tried to delve there before), he'd bet this month's electric bill that Kurt is _smooth_. Pale and supple and hairless all the way to above his -- Blaine should never be allowed to touch him. No one should. He's like some perfect marble angel -- _thing_ , and simultaneously the ideal for the type of porn Blaine doesn't watch.

He whets his lips with a nervous drag of his tongue, struggling to find something to say. _'Weird, right?' 'It's okay if you're freaked out.'_ He's growing increasingly frantic at the silence, the silence that's his responsibility to fill, and has a half-insane thought that he should offer to shave it off even though the idea makes him cringe, when Kurt quite literally makes him jerk in surprise.

His fingers, his deft, proper little fingers drag themselves through Blaine's chest hair and give an experimental tug.

He does it again, finding a new place to pull at as if he's trying to find what he likes best. It's closer to his nipple, pinpricks of taut pleasure near where he's sensitive. Blaine has spent the last few minutes in a comfortable state of pleasure, not actually aroused but hyper-aware, but now he's shocked to arousal and trying like hell to stave it off.

He shifts his legs under the covers, bumping all up against Kurt's, his heels digging into the mattress. Kurt hasn't pulled again, and it should be a relief but it's only tension unresolved. His cock is getting hard; the way the fabric of his boxers rest against it is a frustrating taunt. He wants so many things -- his hand, an orgasm, Kurt making sweet, gasping noises that are brand new to him, but most of all he wants Kurt's mouth and that's the one thing he'll allow himself to take.

Kurt seems surprised when Blaine uses his hand to push Kurt's face up so he can kiss him, and he realizes dimly that Kurt can't grasp the full scope of what he's doing to Blaine. To Kurt, it's more gentle closeness, but Blaine's too busy sucking on Kurt's lower lip and trying not to dig his teeth in address it.

It takes all of his willpower to ease off the kiss, and as soon as he tries to, Kurt starts to lean in for more, eyes closed and lips parted. He mewls quietly in disappointment when Blaine doesn't move back in.

"Kurt, sweetheart... " Blaine's chest is pounding. He tucks a strand of hair behind Kurt's ear, purposefully light. "You can stay, but we both need to be up early in the morning. Let's try and get some sleep now, okay?" He tries to keep it from sounding too much like a plea. "I'll wake you up a few minutes early tomorrow so you can head back to your room."

"Okay." Kurt curls right back into Blaine's chest, snuggling like a child in to the safety of his arms. "Sweet dreams," he murmurs.

Blaine closes his eyes and tries to recall how to breathe. "Good night, Kurt."

\--

The next two days are spent on the phone; drumming up donations is one of Blaine's least-favorite things to do, but for some reason he manages to pull in around double what the rest of the staff does. Blaine must be sacrificing parts of his soul every time he manages to charm or guilt someone into pulling out their checkbook, because when he hangs up he's usually grinding his teeth.

Kurt's been busy too, amping up for midterms and helping Blaine with invitations to the charity dinner in his free time. Necessity dictates that every corner he comes across must be cut, and that means that they make the invitations themselves, on stiff ivory paper ("purple, _really_?" Kurt drawled, vetoing Blaine's suggestion almost before he'd finished telling him. "You want to go there?"), Kurt working his magic customizing envelopes and Blaine addressing them. It's nearly the only time they see each other. Kurt hasn't sneaked into his room again, and Blaine knows he shouldn't encourage it. They trade subdued, happy smiles whenever they catch sight of each other, even if it's only been five minutes since the last time.

The invitations are all done, finally, and Blaine wants to cherish the small, somewhat pathetic victory.

On Monday, Kurt's home promptly at 3:45, Tracy at his heels and Michael ten minutes behind. Charlie gets to work at four, and Blaine's technically off-shift until the next morning with Mia taking the noc. (She, like a true professional, actually stays up the whole night on the couch, just in case someone might need to talk. They rarely do. After the first year of blinking back sleep and watching MTV, Blaine said fuck it and claimed the spare room as his own for overnights. He feels less bad about that than he should.)

Kurt's doing homework at the kitchen table, Tracy's blaring music as loud as they'll let her, and Charlie's trying to rope Tom into a game of poker with little success.

"It's this or Go Fish, man," Charlie shrugs, and Blaine knows he's getting particular pleasure out of stomping on whatever plans Tom had for the rest of the day. Curfew's nine for the over sixteens on weekdays, which Tom seems to find wholly unfair and keeps finding ways to break. Blaine gets mad when he flouts rules every other day; Charlie gets sneaky.

"I'm supposed to go hang out with friends," Tom protests, and the look on his face could light someone on fire.

"What friends? You have friends? You should bring them over here and we could all play Go Fish together."

"Fuck you," Tom says. "You suck."

"Yay, Tracy doesn't have to do the dishes tonight! That's all you, buddy. Own it."

Blaine barely manages to hold his laughter in check at Tom's increasingly indignant face. If this keeps going, Tom will be doing all the household chores for the week, so he steps in with an "okay, I think it's time for you to go do homework."

Tom turns his irritation onto Blaine. He's less likely to rip Blaine's head off, for whatever reason. "Are you serious?"

"Or you could just go brood at your wall," Charlie offers cheerily.

Tom stomps off to his room, and Charlie just goes back to the newspaper he was reading.

"What time are you making dinner?" Blaine asks him.

"You mean what time is Tom making dinner?" Charlie shakes out the sports section and shrugs. "I don't know, six-thirty, seven."

"Okay." He calls Kurt's name before he even starts toward the kitchen. "Let's go drop these godforsaken invites off and get some coffee to celebrate our achievement. I'll pay." Kurt doesn't have much money; his dad left him some, but the life insurance is tied up and any amount of his trust won't be accessible until he's eighteen. He gets little amounts here and there and saves them up for clothes and the odd bottle of lotion. Never on fast food, coffee, or movie tickets like the rest of the kids.

Kurt, ever himself, doesn't simply drop what he's doing and shove it into his bag. He pulls out his pencil case, shuffles his papers in order before tucking them into a folder, and leaves a bookmark in his History book. "Just give me a moment to put this away and grab my coat."

Blaine waits for him, winding his own scarf around his neck and buttoning up his peacoat. It's early fall, but sometimes Ohio likes to freak out and turn bitterly cold after a week of Indian summer weather. When he hears Kurt's footsteps approaching, he's idly twirling his keys around his thumb. When turns around to see him, the twirling comes to an abrupt end.

Kurt hasn't gone out of his way to dress up; he's wearing his school clothes and just added a camel-colored jacket with a scarf, but his eyes are so bright, and he's cocking his head at Blaine expectantly. "All set?"

"Yeah," Blaine says, reaching for the door handle, when Michael wanders past them on his way to the living room and stops short.

"Where are you guys going?"

"Post Office and the Lima Bean."

Michael purses his thin lips, like he's weighing their plans and finding them lacking. "Can I come?"

Blaine sees Kurt's eyebrow raise, but he doesn't look truly annoyed. It's only coffee, anyway, some quiet time alone in the car together at most; there's no opportunity for anything like what Blaine wants to do with Kurt. He wouldn't even chance kissing him.

Kurt's the one who answers-- "Sure, if you want."

"Awesome," Michael says, grabbing his camo printed jacket from its hook on the wall and pulling it on. "Free coffee."

\--

Kurt argues for the job of going in to drop the invitations at the Post Office and wins, haphazardly carrying three thick stacks and a twenty for a book of stamps while Michael and Blaine wait in the car. Michael stares out the window while Blaine flips between NPR and an oldies station on the radio to fill the time, not the silence; Michael's quiet has never bothered him.

The passenger door opens and brings with it icy air and Kurt, who is flushed and flipping down the sun visor so he can check his bangs in the mirror. "Eugh, it was a madhouse in there," he complains, tilting his head this way and that, eyes narrowed in scrutiny. "A little old lady nearly broke my rib trying to get past me to the drop-off slots. I barely escaped with my life." He flips the visor up with a smart snap and looks at Blaine, then Michael over his shoulder. "Coffee?"

"Coffee," Blaine agrees, keeping his ridiculous smile contained and turning off the background murmur of NPR.

The Lima Bean serves rather underwhelming coffee, but Blaine eschews Starbucks whenever possible, and he supposes that supporting local businesses is noble, or something. It's also fairly close to the Post Office, so it's only a few red lights until they're there, Blaine hopping up onto the sidewalk and moving fast so he can get the door for a woman with a stroller.

"Cute baby," Michael says in a sarcastic mutter, and Blaine shakes his head, fighting a smile. Okay, the baby's not -- it's a planet away from cute, in fact, but Michael's assholeishness is terrible and endearing.

"What do you guys want?" he asks instead, tucking his hands in his pockets. "You can get whatever."

Michael heads straight for the pastry case as Kurt answers politely, "Non-fat mocha, please." He's hovering close to Blaine's side, an inch or so too far into his personal space, but he's studying the menu like it's absent-minded, accidental. Blaine knows it's not, that the entire thing is an artifice concealing a messiness between them.

"Hey, Blaine," Michael hollers back to them. "Can I get both that bread thing and one of those scones? And uh, something with whipped cream?"

"Diabetes," Kurt says under his breath.

"You want something else?" Blaine asks Kurt with a tip of his head, absently waving his permission to Michael. Sometimes their relationship feels odd in public. The kids tend to treat him somewhere between a father and a friend, laughing and teasing, but always falling back on his authority.

"No, thank you," Kurt demurs. He rarely takes dessert after dinner, and when he snacks it's only handfuls of granola. It's a long shot, but Blaine's not giving up so easily.

"I want a cookie but I shouldn't eat the whole thing," he says. "And I'm not giving Michael any more sugar. Look, they even have those ones with the sprinkles. Split one with me? Please?"

Kurt fights a smile. "If you insist."

\--

"How's school?" Blaine asks the boys, resting his forearms on the table and giving them his full attention. If he were to credit his success at the Courage House towards a particular quality, it's his ability to listen.

Michael stretches his arms up over his head and leans back in the chair. "Shitty. My chemistry teacher acts like I'm never going to graduate if I can't memorize the periodic table. Uh, think he needs a reality check. He still goes to high school everyday too."

"I don't think I remember anything from the periodic table," Blaine says, recalling back to the requisites he had to take in college and how he'd gratefully blocked them from memory. His head needs to carry so many countless things as it is.

"Well, you're not a chemist."

In a lull that follows, Kurt runs his thumb up the side of his cup and looks thoughtful. "I'm thinking of auditioning for the Glee club," he says, in a quiet but clear voice.

The announcement catches both of their attention, but it's Michael who gets his mouth open first. "Oh, that's an awesome idea. It's not enough to live in the Fag House as it is -- you want to glitz it up with some showtunes too?" Michael's tone isn't acerbic, just dry and sarcastic.

Blaine raises an eyebrow at him, but Kurt doesn't look up from inspecting his fingernails. He sounds bored. "I'm sorry that modern medicine has yet to reach a compromise for your particular evolutionary handicap. Maybe in a few years they'll be able to program you to sing and move at the same time. It's safer if you don't try until then -- wouldn't want you to get hurt."

Michael chuckles. "Isn't Hudson, the quarterback, in Glee club? You ever get him to be your boyfriend?"

That gets Kurt's gaze to lift. "Yes, and _no_. Finn's an idiot. Apparently he thought he got his girlfriend pregnant by sitting next to her in a hot tub. If I ever had any... _feelings_ towards him, they're very well gone." He doesn't look at Blaine, and Blaine doesn't look at Kurt.

Michael gives a shrug and balls up the wrapper for his pastry, wiping a film of sticky sugar from his fingertips. "Too bad, Hummel. He's cute." He flicks the wrapper over to Kurt's side of the table, and Kurt jumps like it's a snake.

Blaine brushes it out of the way, rolling his eyes fondly as he redirects the conversation. "I told you guys I did Glee club in high school, right? I was the lead soloist until another boy came along who looked better than me in the blazer." He smiles at Kurt and gives an encouraging nod. "Audition. You'll love it. It was the best part of high school for me."

"Really?" Kurt's eyes are bright and pleased.

Blaine nods and nudges Kurt's knee under the table. "Let me know if I can help you get ready for the audition."

"I'm thinking of going with something classic," Kurt says, excitement creeping in, animating him by tiny degrees. He rolls a circle with his wrist, swirling the cup in his hand before taking a sip. "Probably Broadway, I don't know."

"Didn't they do Push It at last year's assembly?" Michael asks idly. "That Zizes girl got suspended."

It doesn't seem take the wind out of Kurt's sails. If anything, he looks like he's remembering it fondly. "As if I could forget that."

"You'll have an edge, then. What with your lack of inappropriate humping. You can class up the place."

Blaine wants to ask but he has a feeling this is going to go over his head even with an explanation. He watches Michael and Kurt back and forth through their volleying conversation, as they smile at each other faintly and conspiratorially.

"My sheer talent alone will drag the club from the depths of its current status."

"Your sheer talent will drag your reputation into the ground, you mean."

"I have a reputation?" Kurt asks, sounding surprised and genuinely interested. "What is it?"

Blaine knows he's not going to like what's coming. He isn't proven wrong by Michael's halfhearted shrug and "you know, girly little faggot." Michael drains the last dregs of his coffee and stands up with it, tossing it into a nearby trash bin. He must catch the stricken look on Kurt's face, because he shifts his weight awkwardly and slips his hands into his pockets. "Cheer up; it's better than mine."

"No one there knows you're gay," Kurt says, discarding his air of unease and shock like a jacket deemed unworthy. He isn't back to himself quite yet, but he's not dwelling. "Do they? They don't know where you live."

"Nope, but they know everything else." Blaine wonders what that means. They know that he'd been kicked out, arrested for sleeping in an abandoned building? Or do the inconsequential things add up to ostracism because Michael doesn't fit the mold of an average high school student?

It's clear Michael's ready to go, and Blaine, stuck in pensive, somewhat unsettled silence, doesn't have a reason to prolong their outing.

By the time they're back at the car, it's as though the sour notes of their conversation hadn't happened at all. Kurt ticks off song ideas on his fingers and Michael periodically makes noises from the back seat. Blaine settles his hands on the steering wheel, amazed by the speed of teenage mood swings.

\--

Blaine is bopping his shoulders around, playfully singing ABC by the Jackson 5 to the boys as they come back into the house. His attention is a little bit lost in Kurt -- he spent the latter half of the car ride trying to find a song that Kurt would sing with him until he finally struck gold with ABC. He holds the door open for Kurt who has just started to sing the harmony and bumps his shoulder into Michael's as he passes to keep him snapping his fingers to the beat.

He's mid-verse when he realizes that the exterior waiting room isn't empty, and it's still a moment after he pauses that the boys stop jostling each other and grow too quiet.

All at once the weight of responsibility falls back onto his shoulders, and he walks right out of a two-step to offer his hand to the social worker and the woman beside her. "Hi there-- I wasn't expecting to see you today." He glances behind him, and Michael's eyes are downcast, and Kurt has on his showface, blank and slightly disinterested.

"Oh, I'm sorry; I thought Michael would've mentioned it." With one or two notable exceptions, Blaine likes the social workers who come in and out of the House. They're on the same side, he figures. This woman is slight, quick, and efficient, if occasionally dull.

Blaine raises an eyebrow to Michael, the question posed all over his face. The teenager just shrugs and walks over to his mother's side.

"We've been in touch with his mother for a while now, trying to get things all set so Michael can go back home," the social worker explains patiently. "Right now they're both in a good position to be reunited -- I know you two have been working hard to get here." Michael murmurs something unintelligible, but it's Kurt who speaks up.

"You're leaving?"

The adults all exchange looks, and Blaine keeps his emotions firmly in check. "If that's what everyone thinks is best." The best option he has in this situation is to be cooperative and supportive.

Michael draws himself up, tight and forced. "Guess I've gotta grab my stuff." He lopes up the stairs towards the bedrooms, leaving the room quiet in his wake.

Blaine isn't prepared to see Kurt look so stunned, or to feel him stumble back against his chest, instinctively seeking the contact. Blaine rests his hand on Kurt's shoulder, and he knows Kurt is leaning too far into him, but he can't bring himself to say anything, not now.

By the time Michael makes it back downstairs with his backpack and a duffel bag, he's offering platitudes towards Blaine and the carpet -- _it's fine, it's only a year until he turns eighteen, his dad isn't allowed on the property, he'll still see everyone at school._

Michael knocks into Kurt's shoulder as some sort of weird teenage boy goodbye, but when he turns to Blaine, the man's arms are already open for him. He draws Michael in close, swallowing down his regret and doubt, offering "Best of luck. Come by and see us," instead. The next words are more intimate, closer to Michael's ear. "Anytime. I mean it."

Blaine feels when Michael nods into his shoulder, giving him a rabbit-quick squeeze before drawing back. "I'll see you guys, I guess." He offers Kurt a nod, eyes darting to his face and away again.

The three of them file through the front door, and the case worker -- Linda, he remembers -- stops to throw Blaine a tired smile. "I might fax over some paperwork," she says. It's a definite that she will. He gets some amount of reimbursement from the state, a stipend, really, and every single penny of it requires extensive, exhausting documentation. With Michael gone, that paperwork needs to be updated.

"All right. Thanks, Linda."

He locks the door behind them, slow and deliberate.

Kurt's got his arms crossed around his middle, the picture of someone protecting himself, and Charlie is standing in the hallway frowning. He adjusts the worn beanie on his head and clears his throat. "Fuck me. That sucks."

"Yeah," Blaine agrees. He tries to rationalize the sensation of hollowness in his chest. This is not the first time he's been reluctant or sad to let someone go elsewhere, back home to where their troubles started. It certainly won't be the last.

"I'm going to make dinner," Charlie announces. "Like a four course meal. I need something to do."

"I have homework to finish," Kurt says in a thick voice, as low as Blaine's ever heard it.

"I'll come get you all when dinner's ready. Hopefully Charlie will finish before our horde of hungry teenagers start a revolt."

That elicits a ghost of a smile from both of them, and they turn and head to separate ends of the house.


	3. Chapter Three

He'd put it off for as many days as he could, but Michael's room needed to be cleaned out, and his bed washed and remade for the next occupant. The kids had already been ushered up the stairs and off to bed as he dumped the last of the bedsheets into the washer, leaving the laundry room -- and most of the lower level -- quiet and placid.

Blaine eases his back against the opposite wall, letting his mind zone out for a few prized moments. The room tends to stay a bit warm from the constant rumble of the machines, and the scent of detergent and fabric softener hangs thick but comfortable in the air.

When the door opens this time, Blaine’s grateful.

“I couldn’t find you,” Kurt says, sounding a little petulant. He looks like he’s about halfway through his evening routine -- skin soft and damp from moisturizing, but still half in his street clothes and half in his pajamas. The effect is adorable.

“Sorry,” Blaine murmurs, genuinely apologetic. He lets his eyes linger as Kurt slowly enters and props himself up on the machine across from Blaine.

Kurt gives him a half-smile. “I’ve found you now.” With the palms of his hands flat against the lid, Kurt pushes himself up to take a seat on the washing machine. His socked feet swing back and forth.

“How are you?” Blaine asks, cocking his head. “You’ve been quiet lately.”

“So have you,” Kurt notes, and Blaine has to admit he has a point. The house has descended into a weary stasis since Michael’s departure. It’s temporary; Blaine’s seen these cycles happen, but the knowledge alone doesn’t do much to raise the energy level. Kurt watches him for a moment, then comes to a decision.

“Hug.”

“What?” Blaine laughs, caught off-guard.

"Hug," Kurt repeats, opening and closing his outstretched hands insistently.

Bemused but charmed, Blaine steps forward to obey. He stops so he doesn't crowd Kurt's legs against the washing machine, which has stopped filling with water and is in its short lapse before it starts to churn. Kurt smiles down at him from his vantage point and puts his hands on Blaine's shoulders, trailing them in a light, comforting caress to the back of his neck. Kurt leans forward and presses a kiss to the top of Blaine's head, and it's a lucky thing Blaine hasn't given enough of a fuck to wear gel in the last few days. His curls, kept short, dip under the faint pressure of his lips.

Blaine closes his eyes, sighing. It's more soothing than the best of condolences, the deepest night's sleep. The two of them together like this, there's no fear, no leaden weight in his stomach. He barely gives a thought to the idea of being caught; Kurt's smart enough to have locked the door behind him, anyway.

With another kiss, Kurt straightens up and strokes his thumb along Blaine's temple, shifting a lock of hair.

"Hi," Blaine says, and cranes his face up for a kiss just as Kurt leans over again.

Objectively, they haven't had more than a handful of opportunities to kiss. But they do this time, and Blaine feels like it's well-worn and familiar, muscle memory. Kurt tastes like fading toothpaste and the wet glide of a kiss. It's only the tiniest bit sexy; Blaine feels loose and relaxed and happy, and he nips Kurt's lip in what he hopes comes across as his appreciation. Kurt makes an _mmph_ noise and opens wider for Blaine's tongue, his fingers flexing against the back of Blaine's neck.

The washer kicks into its first cycle, and Kurt's body jolts with surprise. Blaine's hands automatically go to his thighs to secure him, a pointless gesture, and follow up with an affectionate squeeze. He keeps his hands on the outer sides of Kurt's thighs, wanting to keep it as nonsexual as possible, but Kurt _gasps_ into his mouth.

Kurt seems taken aback by his own reaction. Blaine is somewhere between intrigued and thrown into unexpected lust, and can't help but squeeze again, testing, thumbs bearing down the hardest. Kurt's second gasp is even more of a thrill. This isn't just kissing anymore. This is a segue into something else, and Blaine needs to make sure that Kurt's aware of that, that he wants it.

Kurt latches his fingers into the material of Blaine's shirt when he tries to disengage the kiss to speak, yanking him back in. Startled, Blaine lets himself be manhandled to where Kurt wants him, their mouths fused together.

The washing machine's vibration is so strong it's actually jostling Kurt on top of it. Blaine can feel his own hands tingling from it, intense even through the buffer of Kurt's legs.

What it must feel like to Kurt -- constant thrumming under him in the places where he's most sensitive. His kisses have turned sloppy, overwhelmed, rubbing Blaine's entire mouth sore and wet to even just under his lips. He's still clenching Blaine's shirt, and he's slumped forward in a way that can't be comfortable.

Blaine pops up on his toes to push him a little straighter and drags his mouth down from lips to jaw, breath deliberately choppy and right up against the skin. He feels the fine, barely, _barely_ there prickle of Kurt's nighttime stubble and clenches all over, his head to his feet, knees locking, a sensation akin to vertigo swooping over him.

He sucks a filthy kiss to the hinge of Kurt's jaw, hands rubbing slowly, suggestively up to the tops of Kurt's thighs at the same time, unable to stop himself. Kurt _presents_ his neck, and after a moment he hesitantly parts his thighs, like he's thought about it and decided to push his chess piece forward on the board. It gives Blaine just enough room to step between them.

Now the churning of the washer is dangerously close to pressing against his cock. He tears away from Kurt's neck right when he's about to start biting, marking. He wants to, so badly, but they can't afford it, shouldn't do it. Kurt clumsily moves in to get at Blaine's mouth again, and they just aren't close enough; he can't work Kurt's skin between his teeth until it's pink, can't make him feel as good as he knows he can. Instead, he lets himself slide his hands back to the tense outside of Kurt's thighs, getting a good enough grip so he can haul him forward closer to the edge of the washer and closer to Blaine's body.

Kurt squeaks in surprise, and Blaine moans, regretting it the second it happens. Quiet. They have to be quiet. God willing the noise of the laundry room had drowned it out.

He can't deal with how much he wants. Kurt's there, right there, muscles tensing under Blaine's hands. He chances a low, needy, "oh, Kurt," and Kurt knows how desperately they need to stay quiet, he's so smart, he's so good, he's so fucking gorgeous under Blaine's hands, but he can't hold back entirely. He moans, and then there's more, noises that he barely manages to choke back.

Kurt's so wound up he can't hold a kiss together anymore, mouth going lax while harsh, unsteady breath spills out. The inseam of Kurt's jeans registers as Blaine trails his fingers past it, up and up and up, helpless to stop himself, suddenly there at Kurt's dick. His hand hovers, trembling, until the last thread of his own resistance snaps and he's cupping it, riding out the roll of Kurt's hips. He fits his fingers around it as best he can through the strained material, feeling out the shape, twisting his hand so he can grind the backs of his knuckles down onto it. The exact size of him is still kind of a mystery with so much denim in the way, but he feels _thick_ and perfect and Kurt's voice cracks as he tries to control it.

Kurt's the first person he's been with who's come into a relationship untouched since Blaine and his high school boyfriend lost their virginity. Both of them fumbled their way through it, and Blaine had felt barely contained by his own skin, giving and giving and giving. He remembers what it felt like when he came for him, because of him, and he's going to give that to Kurt, he's Kurt's _first_.

"Come for me," he says, with a sudden, vulgar growl to his voice that he's never had before. He pushes his thumb over and over at what he figures is the head of Kurt's cock, unrelenting.

He has to watch Kurt's face when he does, eyes screwed tightly shut, mouth red and bitten and shiny. In that moment where he hovers right before it, his face is unearthly, beautiful pale skin, unlike anything Blaine's ever seen or gotten to touch before. Beautiful boy. He comes for Blaine, body wracking, and he keeps steadily rubbing, making it edge into as hard of an orgasm as he can. The tremors underneath him must be torment.

There's a jarring metal clang as Kurt's foot slams back into the washing machine. He twists his hips around, keening a reedy " _Blaine_ " as the last of his orgasm shudders through him. It would be cruel to keep up the stimulation, so Blaine pulls back his rubbed-raw hand.

Kurt slumps forward into him, nuzzling at Blaine's neck, spent but still greedy for contact. He needs Blaine in a different way now, as his body starts to slow and come back to him. He tucks his arms low around Kurt's waist, utterly enamored with how solid and warm he feels. He listens as Kurt's little puffs of breath start to even out.

"I've got you," Blaine says, a whisper in Kurt's ear. "You were so good, Kurt."

Kurt presses a gentle kitten-kiss just below Blaine's jaw. "Blaine... " he breathes. He's trying to put words together, but he can't, not yet. Blaine's the only thing holding him up.

Blaine slowly draws his fingers up and down Kurt's spine, more aware than ever of how precious Kurt is within the circle of his arms, of how careful he needs to be with him. Kurt squirms a bit under his hand, resettling his weight on the washer, and Blaine realizes that the position must scarcely be bearable now.

"You want to get down?" Blaine asks, giving Kurt a brief squeeze around the waist so he knows that Blaine's got him. "Let me help, come on."

There's a muffled noise from Kurt that's probably consent -- he slips right down off the washer and lands against Blaine's chest. Kurt doesn't quite look up at him, just tucks his head shyly under Blaine's ear. "Bed?" Kurt mumbles, and Blaine wouldn't have been sure he had even said it if Kurt wasn't pressed right up against him.

"Yeah," Blaine agrees, sweet and reassuring. He's still hard but the ache in his balls is beginning to dull; soon he can dismiss it altogether.

Kurt gives a content, undecipherable murmur, and somehow he manages to get them out the door, switching the light off behind them and closing the laundry room door as quietly as possible. He'll leave the wash in overnight; hopefully it won't mildew. The space outside is still blessedly empty; Blaine feels something ease up in him that he didn't even know was wound.

He has to steer Kurt up the stairs, but it's simple enough to navigate once they reach the top. There's an unspoken understanding that they're headed to Blaine's room, and they pass through the hall in silence. Once Blaine's bedroom door is shut behind them, the atmosphere turns sleepy and comfortable. Kurt is mussed and only half-awake, but he helps Blaine tug off his shirt, and Blaine gives him a shoulder to balance on as he pulls off his jeans. He gets out an extra pair of sweatpants, leaving them on the dresser for Kurt to change into and turning away to mess with the sheets and pillows on his bed.

Unsure of what's appropriate for him to sleep in, he ends up an old work tshirt and his boxers. He takes a seat on the side of the bed, unnecessarily folding his socks up as he waits to see what Kurt will do. His erection has nearly faded, and he's relieved; in no way does he want Kurt to assume that he needs him to do something in return. Not now. Not after something this big.

He only looks up when Kurt comes forward, and he can't help but smile -- caught in the middle of his clothes and Blaine's, he looks silly but not as embarrassed as Blaine might have expected.

"Bed?" Blaine says this time, and Kurt nods, crawling up from the foot of the bed and faceplanting right in the middle, childlike. It's one of the most unselfconscious things Blaine has ever seen him do. Blaine chuckles, but he definitely doesn't have the heart to scoot Kurt's limbs out of the way, so after he flicks off the light he awkwardly folds himself down and teeters on the edge until Kurt rearranges and Blaine can fit the rest of himself on the bed.

Kurt's still for a few more moments, but eventually pulls his head up from the pillow, mostly a silhouette in the dark but clearly looking at Blaine. "Are you all right?" he asks.

Blaine, scrunching a pillow up to fit under his head, blinks. It's the last thing he would have expected from Kurt, or from anyone in that situation, but thinking about it, it's very him. He's thoughtful and astute and those are of the reasons why Blaine found himself driven to care so deeply. "Never better," he says.

Both the space Kurt scoots over to free and the affectionate but shy smile Kurt gives him are gratefully taken. The two of them settle in, Kurt's breathing already evening out to the rhythm of sleep.

Blaine’s own breathing levels out, his heartbeat, and with heavy eyes he notices as Kurt’s muscles twitch intermittently as his body slips under. His hand uncurls next to Blaine’s shoulder, and Blaine shuts his eyes.

\--

Blaine wakes up early to make sure Kurt gets back to his room before dawn, but the space beside him is already empty, the pillow fluffed into shape and the covers straightened. Blaine rolls over onto his back and stares at the ceiling, willing the sleep-fog from his mind. Waking up this morning isn’t all sunshine and shared smiles like it might have been. He’s alone in his bed with a dull point of pain behind his eyes that will grow into a headache by noon.

He closes his eyes, and when he opens them again, he knows he needs two things: coffee and clarity. He drags a hand through his hair and tries to tug out the wrinkles from his shirt before he heads downstairs. He’ll have an hour or so before the kids start to wake up, and he _needs_ that time alone.

Fifteen minutes later, tucked into the back corner of the kitchen table, he thinks about Kurt tiptoeing back to his own bed. The images come unbidden. Kurt, cheeks still flushed from sleep and the warmth of lying next to another man, padding through the empty hall in Blaine's pants. Kurt with touched and messy bed hair -- _sex_ hair. Would his lips still be red? Would his eyes have that same glassy look?

No. It can't keep happening this way. Blaine needs to take control of this. This is his life, his career, the career he struggled and fought for, and there are real, terrifying consequences if he destroys it. This is Kurt’s entire _future_. What if someone had seen Kurt leaving his room, dressed up in Blaine’s clothes, Blaine’s invisible handprints smudged all over him. Blaine wouldn’t be able to defend Kurt or himself. He couldn’t lie, not in the _Courage House_ , the place he’d built to teach honesty and acceptance. And instinctively, he knows he couldn’t do that to Kurt, either. He couldn’t stand in front of Charlie or a judge or _anyone_ and say, _no, it was just a mistake, you have it all wrong, it’s nothing like that._

Blaine’s grip tightens on the coffee mug until his knuckles whiten. He’s the adult here. He’s not a starry-eyed kid intoxicated by hope and hormones and possibility. He’s not the one cornered on top of a washing machine, held in place by the hands rubbing up his thighs, making him gasp until he can’t even sit up straight or string words together or --

Blaine stands up, takes the mug over to the sink, and slams it down. Somehow Kurt’s the one who had the forethought to wake himself up and take himself back to his own bed. Why didn’t he wake up Blaine before he left?

He's tired of this. He's tired of the sick feeling that overtakes him after each encounter, tired of his own stupidity, of standing in a kitchen in his boxers having a crisis of conscience. He's not going to do it anymore; he's going to spare them from a path that's going to twist and crack and strand both of them.

Mia's got morning shift in a few hours. He can leave then. Blaine had plans for the day; rejigging the chores schedule, planning a menu for that fucking charity dinner, a trip to the grocery store. Nine times out of ten, even when he's off-shift he sits in the kitchen or the living room and does everything from there. But he's got a perfectly good apartment waiting for him and likely getting _dusty_ in his absence. He needs to stop clinging to Courage House like a limpet and live a halfway normal life.

No more sleeping in his makeshift bedroom, unless he's got a legitimate night shift. Maybe no more night shifts, period.

He dumps his coffee down the sink, watching as some amber drops linger on the sides. He's got a plan - and straight-backed resolve that he learned from his father and his rigorous years at Dalton and Northwestern. Slipping into that mindset is like riding a bike, albeit a slightly rusty one.

\--

The day after his first handful of RSVPs come in, Wes calls. Blaine is surprised to see his name pop up on the caller ID, but Blaine invited him, and Wes is the sort of person who calls rather than checking 'decline' on the card Blaine included.

"Wesley," Blaine crows happily into the phone, twisting his shoulder to tuck it against his ear so his hands are free. He's making salad and he's already managed to smear vinegar from the dressing onto the phone when he answered. "To what do I owe this pleasure?"

The line is choppy; Wes is overly fond of talking in his car with the windows cracked. "It's your token bi-annual phone call, of course."

"Aren't I lucky?" Blaine laughs, ripping up lettuce that he probably should have patted a little dryer and dropping it into a bowl. "How are you?"

"I'm fine. I'm headed to Ohio soon, which is what I wanted to talk to you about."

"Oh?" Wes comes back every other year or so to visit his parents, and all of the Warblers near enough to come usually try to make a reunion of his visit. "Are you crashing the charity dinner?"

"No, I'm sorry," Wes says, suddenly grave and serious. He's sincere in his apology, and whatever disappointment Blaine might feel -- which is pretty negligible, since he never assumed Wes would come in the first place -- is overtaken with a swell of fondness. "I sent you a check, though, and I added a little to express my regrets."

"Wes," Blaine says suspiciously. "How much did you send me?"

Wes makes more money than almost anyone Blaine knows, and he knows some obnoxious people who agonize about what kind of marble to install in their summer home. He doesn't _see_ these people much anymore, and he's glad for it, because over the years his bubble of a private school existence faded, and what seemed normal to him at seventeen would inspire seething now.

"It's tax-deductible, Blaine. Don't worry about it."

Blaine isn't sure what his face is going to look like when he sees the check, but he's betting on horrified. "So why _are_ you coming to Ohio? Did your mom guilt you over missing Christmas?"

"I live with parental guilt every day, I'm certainly immune to it by now. I was invited to speak at an alumni dinner for the Warblers. I'd already committed by the time I got your invitation," Wes says, and Blaine shakes his head.

"Wes, it's fine," Blaine says warmly. "It's more than fine. I'm sure your pity-check will more than make up for it, and it won't eat any of the food. And you can give my regrets to everyone for skipping out on that alumni dinner."

"Of course. I wanted to ask if you minded me dropping by after my stay in Westerville, but if you're busy, we can reschedule --"

"No, you're not getting out of visiting me. I want to see you. Are you bringing Annabelle?" He's less enthusiastic about Wes' wife, but that's mostly because they've never had an opportunity to do more than exchange pleasantries.

"She's working, unfortunately. It will just be us boys!" Wes says with way too much unironic joy. His attempts at casual are like a grandmother's misguided attempts to stay relevant -- awkward if wholehearted failures.

"Do you know what day you'll be down here? I'll make sure I have the time off."

"Generally. I might stay with my parents for a few days, but I'll be down as soon as I can manage it. Maybe the fourteenth?"

Two days after the charity dinner, and Blaine already has it off. He can take an additional day if things change. There's a whole lot of vacation time he hasn't cracked into. "Your timing is perfect. Just give me a call before you head down or if anything changes."

"I will. How is the planning progressing? Have you picked a menu?"

"Yeah, I hired a caterer." Mia had a friend of a friend who just graduated from culinary school and jumped at the opportunity to do some paid work, even if it was low, low, _low_ pay. "So far everything's going well." He's not going to moan in Wes' ear about the seating chart or the fact that they don't have enough nice chairs, and will probably have to supplement some rickety folding monstrosities -- Blaine is trying to figure out who would be least irked over being seated on one. The budget is steady, anyway, which counts as 'going well.' Once he knows how many people are planning to attend, he can relax a little.

"Glad to hear it. How are things on the personal side? Are you still single?" he asks, as pointedly as Blaine's own mother does.

"Yes," Blaine says, rather more glumly than he meant to.

"You're in your prime, Blaine. Get out and meet people. Besides, I need someone unmarried to live vicariously through, and you're letting me down."

"I'll make sure to give you a blow my blow of my love life as it develops," Blaine says dryly. He'll leave out the chunk where he's unable to stop thinking about a seventeen year old, and how the prospect of seeing anyone else isn't so much uninspiring as it is depressing. This entire bizarre section of his life should just be culled from the history books.

"Obviously," Wes says, and Blaine can picture his smile. "I'm about home, so I suppose I'll let you go."

"Give my regards to --" who? Annabelle? His parents? Dalton? He stumbles and settles on, "everyone. I'll see you."

"You too." Blaine is honestly surprised by the amount of affection in Wes' voice. He's not sure if it's the distance or Blaine's usual obliviousness that makes him assume Wes is less invested than he is.

He feels so much better when he hangs up the phone.

\--

Charlie gives him a strange look when he says he's going to tweak the schedule and asks if he wants to swap some shifts. He gives him an even stranger look when Blaine provides a half-baked explanation about wanting to have more time to dedicate to his personal life. Blaine knows how flimsy it is; his personal life exists, sure, but barely.

He thinks Charlie might assume the thing with Michael really shook him up. And it did; he liked Michael, and his melancholic feelings are only compounded by the slow-motion trainwreck that is his relationship with Kurt. It's best for Blaine that Charlie assume he's had some sort of realization about over-attachment or a mid-life crisis has been triggered, whatever else.

He ends up swapping most of his noc shifts with Mia, who eagerly watched him smudge his name off the schedule whiteboard and replace it with hers. She continually bitches about how much she isn't a morning person when she comes to relieve him, hair in a messy bun and inexplicably wearing sunglasses, slumping around the kitchen until she's finished half a pot of coffee.

Many of the finance files go into his car and make the trip to his apartment. Blaine empties a good two thirds of the dresser and closet space he was using, leaving behind only emergency essentials. He did it when everyone was at school, not in the mood to deal with raised eyebrows or questions.

The first day of the new schedule goes well -- Blaine's surprised at how quickly it ends. Work is a necessity and a distraction, and he's maybe more productive at home or in the cafe up the street from his place than he is at Courage House. It's easy to get swept up in how many things he has to do when he's there, and Blaine isn't the best multi-tasker. The bills don't look quite so daunting when he's sipping hot coffee and listening to a knock-off Starbucks compilation they're piping through the speakers. When he's done with spreadsheets and emails, Blaine takes himself to the grocery store and buys enough food to last a week, and he throws in some impulse purchases -- a bottle of wine, some crab legs, cheap cinnamon rolls, stuff he hasn't had in ages and nearly forgot he enjoyed.

The second day isn't so easy. He's got morning shift, so the kids are gone after breakfast and back only an hour or so before Charlie comes on. He's glad for the privacy, glad he only saw Kurt for a half hour while Kurt made himself and Tracy whole-wheat waffles and then for an hour while he did homework, but he feels like he's aimless for most of the day, like the house being empty means he's empty too.

Kurt knows something has changed. Of course he does; it's emanating from him, a caution and curiosity that manifests in silence equal to Blaine's and, a few times, a hopeful smile that Blaine barely, perfunctorily, returns. He'll explain eventually, he has to, but right now he needs distance for a few more days to get his head straight. For that sad, helpless tug he feels every time they're in close quarters to begin receding. He needs to be alone with Kurt to explain, too, and he doesn't have the best track record with controlling himself when that happens.

For all of Kurt's silence, he doesn't seem to be too shaken by Blaine's abrupt shift. Kurt's internal life is deep and mostly unfathomable to Blaine, but he's not _that_ good of an actor, Blaine doesn't think. And as Blaine has seen over and over, his brain is like a knife's edge. He has to know at least some of the reasons why there is now a line drawn between them. Every once in a while when Blaine's not sufficiently distracted by work, his mind starts hypothesizing reasons Kurt might have for his share of the distance. Kurt's freaked out over what happened between them; he's afraid; he feels entirely rejected and ashamed and confused, and Blaine has to shut that down fast so he doesn't drive over to the house and prostrate himself at Kurt's feet.

\-- tbc


	4. Chapter Four

Blaine comes face-to-face with his own astounding idiocy within a matter of days. He's stretched out on the chaise lounge when it happens, his feet propped up and jazz coming from the stereo. Even at home, alone, he holds his shoulders up straight; he listens to the music and does the work and plays the part, because the alternative is _not acceptable_.

It's going well. Two new kids will be moving into the house soon, no one's set any of the living room couches on fire, and Kurt's still going to his classes in vibrant scarves and brooches. Blaine's been keeping a close eye on Kurt (not because he feels guilty, or because he remembers the way that Kurt gasped into his neck, wrung-out and utterly dependent on Blaine's strength to hold him up). Kurt has always been a special kid, and he doesn't have many people on his side. Blaine can be one of them, he can support Kurt through high school and Glee club, and whatever else it is that Kurt decides he wants to do. He can do that – even if he can't hold Kurt's gaze or accept a cup of morning coffee from him without his chest clenching painfully.

When the bell on his apartment door chimes, he slips a bookmark between the pages of his book and pads over in his socks to open the door. When he sees Kurt Hummel standing there with his arms folded and his pretty blue eyes set with determination, Blaine's mouth falls open.

Kurt studies him, managing to look expectant and unimpressed all at once. Blaine blinks, stunned and feeling slightly like he's been hit on the back of the head with a two-by-four.

Kurt can barely contain his eye-roll. "Social courtesy suggests that you invite me in."

"I--" Blaine's hand twitches on the door handle, instinct opening it a few inches before he gets some of his brainpower back and stills. "What are you doing here? _How_ are you here?" As a rule, he doesn't give out any personal information -- employees know where he lives in the case of an emergency, but that's it.

"There's this newfangled thing called the internet," Kurt says. "I know it came after your time, but you might have heard of it."

"Right."

Kurt's chin lifts when Blaine remains immobile. "Are you letting me in or are we having this conversation on the stoop?"

There are only so many options: let Kurt in to have their inevitable conversation (which, as present circumstances are ruthlessly driving home for him, Blaine has inexcusably delayed), try and talk to him outside where the neighbors could see to spare himself from the painful intimacy of Kurt in his home, or shut the door on his face. The latter Blaine can't consider seriously -- one, it would be so terribly cruel when the point of this is to keep Kurt as intact as possible, and two, Kurt would stubbornly stay at his door until Blaine caved.

He opens the door wordlessly and steps back, Kurt already brushing swiftly past him into the living room. He regards the contents for a moment, and Blaine wonders what Kurt's sophisticate eyes see. It's all fairly nice stuff, if eclectic, and some of it hold-overs from his college years, but Kurt loves cohesion and clean lines. "May I sit?" Kurt asks, less cutting now that he's wedged his way inside, although the air between them feels practically frosty.

"Of course."

Kurt sits in a way that Blaine can tell is well-rehearsed; one slim leg crossing the other, a hint of his bright socks between the hem of his pants and his shoe. Kurt folds his hands on his lap and gives him a long look, sizing him up. "I'm young, but I'm not _stupid_ or _impressionable_ , or docile and compliant and whatever else you've convinced yourself that I am. Do you understand that?"

"Kurt-- what--"

"No." Kurt holds up a hand. "You've done enough. It's my turn. We're talking about this whether you like it or not."

The room is Kurt's, Blaine effectively silenced. It's the very least of what he owes Kurt. Kurt takes a moment to collect himself, glossing over the sharper edges of his temper and allowing the rigid set of his mouth to teeter back into a more neutral expression. He's still angry; Blaine can feel the anger as much as he can see it in the lingering glitter of his eyes, but Kurt's buttoning it up.

"I realize that we have an unconventional --" Kurt tilts his head and purses his lips. " _Inappropriate_ relationship, by most standards. But it _is_ a relationship, or I thought it was until you had s-" he stops and his eyes dip down, the smallest fumble. "Sex with me and completely ignored me after. I'm not stupid, I know why you did, but if I was anyone else, it would have been so awful, Blaine."

"If it was anyone else--" Blaine exclaims in disbelief. "It wouldn't _be_ anyone else, Kurt."

The next breath Kurt takes lowers his shoulders and unravels some of his unyielding posture, making him less of a brittle, unmovable object on Blaine's couch. He's gentler when he speaks again, his voice higher. "I know that. That's what I'm saying. What we have, it may be unconventional, but it's special."

"Unconventional," Blaine repeats, rubbing a hand over his stubbly jaw and giving a grimace of a smile. "That's a polite way of putting it."

"Well, how would you put it? Unless I'm horribly off base and you really _do_ just want to get rid of me," Kurt says, harshly, "you care about me."

"That's the _point_." Blaine's voice is rising now. "It has to be this way because I _care_ , because I don't want to see you throw away your life when you're only seventeen. Do you even know how old I am?"

"Thirty-four," Kurt says, quick as a whip and just as cutting, dismissive. Like he knows everything and nothing Blaine says could ever surprise him.

"Wrong."

"Thirty-five."

"Wrong. I'm _thirty-six_ , Kurt."

"Oh, because I was _so_ off," Kurt mutters.

Blaine isn't about to be derailed. Kurt is living in some fantasy land where -- where The Somewhat Ephebophic Love that Dare Not Speak Its Name is so immense that every obstacle just crumbles before it. "I could be your father," he points out.

Something flickers over Kurt's face, but it's gone as quick as it came. He uncrosses his legs then re-crosses them, curling forward and into himself. "At least my father took the time to consider how I felt when he made decisions about my life. My father never told me that I was wrong or inappropriate. He never tried to make me change myself into something that was _fake_ , just because it was easier for everyone else to swallow. He listened to me. He was there when I needed him." The challenge and anger have begun to fade from Kurt's eyes, and without that spark he just looks small and disappointed.

Blaine tries to picture the man that Burt Hummel must have been -- calloused hands, squared shoulders, a deep voice. He can't help but see his own father sitting in his study with thinning hair, reading glasses, and a perpetual headache line etched between his brows. Burt Hummel was a solid man with an open heart who never needed to think twice about loving or protecting. He (or perhaps Kurt, who has been the source of all of his information) might be romanticizing in the soft, blurry glow of memory that grief gives, but for some reason he doesn't think so.

His own father was never comfortable sitting on the couch next to him, letting his son's head tip onto his shoulder as he drowsed off, or carrying Blaine to bed. His father didn't leave him with resolve and self-assurance, but hollow expectations and a lingering feeling of disappointment. He knows, at least, that it wasn't because he was gay (although that put a whole new layer of distance between them when Blaine came out in college). His family simply... wasn't like that.

Although the strain and distance existed before he ever knew or said he was gay, Blaine can't ever forget the first thing his father could bring himself to say to him once he'd come out. It was 1994, and Blaine felt a world away from backwards Ohio, liberated on his college campus. When he came home for Christmas, he told them about his boyfriend. Blaine doesn't know why he was surprised by the reaction he got. It was, after all, what everyone was consumed with, at the time. His father looked at him from across the room with a blank stare and said _Do you have AIDs, Blaine?_ It's a memory he still chokes on.

At once, Blaine realizes how selfish he's been. It hits him with all the subtlety of ice water -- he has to close his eyes, force himself to swallow before he can look at Kurt again. No matter how raw the relationship is, it's still _there_. And even if he never speaks to his parents again, he still has a network of colleagues, old friends, acquaintances he can fall back on.

Kurt doesn't have any of that. He thought he had Blaine, but Blaine's been too busy clinging to his own misguided resolution. Pushing him away makes Blaine feel untethered and guilty and _alone_ , and it makes Kurt feel the very same. Blaine can't stand knowing it now, seeing the hints of uncertainty and hurt.

"We should set some ground rules," Blaine says. He affects a thin smile for Kurt's sake, but his voice is still shaky.

"Ground rules?" Kurt echoes with cautious hope.

"Mhm." Blaine takes a deliberate seat on the couch beside him and curls his palm over Kurt's knee. "We have to be careful. We have to be _so_ careful, but we can be... _us_ , too."

Kurt leans into him, resting his forehead against Blaine's bicep like he's been tired for a long time and has only just been offered reprieve. "Of course," he whispers. "Of course."

"We can't sleep together at the house. We can't kiss. We probably shouldn't be alone together," he says with a sigh, running through a mental list of all the places and situations that could cause them to slip up.

"I thought we were trying to keep from attracting attention. No one at the house cares that we spend time together. Until last week, it was a regular thing. It's more conspicuous if we suddenly start avoiding each other. Let's just be reasonable," Kurt sounds weary but fond. Blaine can feel the sweep of Kurt's eyelashes against his arm. "We set boundaries, we don't overstep them, and we stop making decisions for each other."

Blaine considers that for a moment. Kurt is, of course, right. "Stop being so smart," he says, guiding a finger to Kurt's chin and tipping his face up. "It makes me look bad."

When he gets a look at his eyes, he reels. Kurt is calm and stunning and Blaine's never seen him cry, not once, but right now his eyes are too-clear and shining, lashes spiky with wet. The fingers on Kurt's stubborn little chin drift up, feather-light, trying to soothe and memorize at the same time. The bow of his bottom lip is full and silky as Blaine runs his thumb across it, entranced.

Kurt closes his lips over the tip, holding his finger in place. It matches the tenderness of Blaine's touches, hardly any pressure at all, but it feels like Kurt has just yanked on a tether from Blaine's fingers to his stomach. Kurt doesn't lick it or bite at it, nothing overtly suggestive, only lets the warm plush of his lips surround him until Blaine slips out. Kurt's mouth falls open for him, and Blaine can see the wet pink inside. He taps Kurt's lip with a content, thoughtful _hmm_ and only pulls his hand away after a few seconds of the kiss he leans in for. He settles both hands at Kurt's narrow waist and wonders what it will feel like when the two layers (that he knows of) aren't in the way.

Kurt kisses him back with an open mouth, trading off slow and sweet pecks. He lengthens his torso so he can lean up into Blaine, encouraged by the hands sliding down from his waist, curving briefly over his ass and gripping the backs of his thighs. Blaine presses his mouth more insistently against Kurt's, and between Kurt inching forward and Blaine guiding his hips in, he lowers his weight down onto Blaine's thighs, straddling him with his legs tucked in close.

Blaine hooks his hands together behind Kurt's back, letting his arms drape low and easy around Kurt's waist. Kurt must like it; he dips his forehead to touch Blaine's for a moment and goes back to his mouth, nipping there.

Kurt, Blaine thinks with admiration, is definitely a fast learner.

Kurt's weight is grounding and invigorating on top of him, but the longer they kiss the more Blaine's control slips from him, and the last thing he needs is a repeat of the laundry room. He's not going to make decisions in the heat of the moment again, and what's between them needs some time to even out after churning waters. He puts his hands on Kurt's hips instead of his waist.

"You should get home," he breathes, pressing his forehead to Kurt's, mirroring earlier. "It's nearly dinner."

Kurt leans back and arches a dubious eyebrow. "You choose now to bring this up?"

"No time like the present?" Blaine tries to joke, but his laugh comes out as a huff.

Kurt's face turns serious, and he looks down at Blaine with entreating poise. "Will you come by to eat dinner with us again? It doesn't have to be tonight, just... sometimes."

Blaine gives a short nod, exhaling forcibly. "Yeah. Yeah, I can do that." He brushes a few strands of hair away from Kurt's forehead, then pats at his hip. "Up now."

Kurt goes, unfolding himself with impressive flexibility, hands already smoothing his shirt and pants. Blaine feels the loss of warmth immediately, departed with the reassuring weight of Kurt's body. Blaine stands before he can give himself any ideas, and Kurt gives him a wry smile as they both begrudgingly head toward the door. Unfinished business is hanging heavy in the air, and its push is what makes Blaine place a hand on the small of Kurt's back, ostensibly to guide him but more to assuage Blaine's fierce need to touch and protect.

"Is my hair all right?" Kurt asks, turning around, letting Blaine's hand slip along his side.

He brings his other hand up to brush against Kurt's cheek, and honestly he has no idea what the state of Kurt's hair is; all he sees is the happy look on his face. "You look fine."

Kurt harrumphs at him, clearly not satisfied by his answer, but leans forward to peck him on the lips. "I'll see you soon."

"Tomorrow," Blaine says, separating them once and for all so he can get the door for Kurt. "Stay out of trouble."

"Oh," Kurt says airily, "I don't know about that."

Blaine leans against the door frame and watches Kurt walk away, eyes following the swing of his hips and the way he leans far out off the sidewalk to check for cars before crossing, disappearing from view.

\--

At dinner two nights after Kurt's appearance at Blaine's apartment, it takes a Herculean effort to keep from gazing at him from across the table. Everyone's there; Mia came early to pick up her paycheck and hung around after (he feels someone validated by the fact that the other staff seems as married to work as he feels), Charlie's the one who cooked, and all of the kids are inhaling whatever hodgepodge pasta it was he put together.

Kurt made the bread. He _made_ the bread. Blaine wasn't aware there was a bread maker on the premises. It smells fantastic and Blaine takes three slices, despite his dangerous relationship with carbs. He allows himself a few wide smiles in Kurt's direction, and Kurt returns them a bit conservatively. Of course he's better at this whole covert thing than Blaine.

Tom starts prodding him about the _fresh meat_ that's due the next day, two of them at once. It's the usual; "gay? bi? lez?" and Blaine deflects the questions with a handwave and a lack of smile. "None of your business," he says. "They want to tell you, fine. I'm not going to,"

"Lame. Do we at least get to know what _gender_ they are, or is that violating the Thirtieth Amendment?"

Kurt sighs. "There is absolutely no such thing," he says, not unkindly. The corners of his mouth appear to be twitching.

"Girl and a boy," Blaine allows.

He has no idea what orientation Justin is. Melissa is MTF homosexual, and Blaine's got a bit of a quandary with the rooming situation. The last bedroom needs some serious maintenance, and Blaine isn't comfortable letting anyone sleep in there yet. As of right now, they all room alone. Tom''s pretty volatile, so it should stay that way for him. Tracy used to room with Michael; Blaine hesitates to double up people of the same orientation. A lot of the kids sneak around and have sex anyway, but it's severely against the official rules. He supposes he could try and put the new girl in with Tracy, move one of the boys in with her, or use the tiny, tiny room Blaine and the staff uses on overnights. He'll cross that bridge when he comes to it. No one's going to be very happy with the final decision.

"Girl?" Tracy stops twirling her pasta with her fork and looks interested. "Thank God. I was beginning to feel like I was going to grow a penis by osmosis. And Mia, like, smirks at me if I stare at her. Like I can help it that you're so hot."

Mia snorts, but Blaine is too busy being rattled to openly react. Whatever. It's a joke. They make them all the time, and their default setting is inappropriate. "Please try to keep any leering to a minimum," she says.

"Sooo, Blaine," Charlie butts in, cutting off conversation that can only get more inappropriate. "How's the charity thing coming? Reel in any big fish?"

Blaine slouches back in the chair, sighing heavily. "Can we not? I'm trying to pretend it isn't happening."

Kurt perks up at that. "You shouldn't put it off. If you want to have a successful drive, it needs to be planned very thoroughly."

"I know. I'm falling behind."

Kurt uses the side of his fork to cut the strands of his pasta. He keeps his eyes on his plate. "I could help you. I've got a knack for that sort of thing, and I've always wanted to plan a soiree."

"Maybe," Blaine says, wavering, eyes darting around the table. Everyone just looks bored. Blaine could use the help, and Kurt's perfect for it. He'll collage swatches and plan the seating chart and use his superpowers to ensure that Mia's newbie chef friend doesn't give the guests food poisoning.

At the same time, he knows it's an excuse to spend time alone together. He admires Kurt's machinations, and the prospect is more than enticing.

Kurt shrugs. "It's just an idea."

"No, it's... it's a good one. We'll see."

Kurt looks at Blaine from under his lashes, and there's a promise in there somewhere, and Blaine resigns himself to the fact that Kurt's going to get what he wants. They both are.

\--

"Paper napkins are fine if you want the guests to think that we're uncouth and under-prepared. Fabric napkins are more expensive, but you can wash and reuse them again and again. They're more refined _and_ practical," Kurt says in a tone of voice that suggests Blaine would be lost in a tangle of cheap mylar balloons without him.

Blaine bites his bottom lip on a laugh and updates his notepad accordingly. "All right, fabric napkins it is."

"Good." Kurt nods authoritatively, but his smile is so simple and happy that Blaine nearly forgets what he's writing.

He's seen Kurt through a lot of different lenses – wary and introverted when he first came to Courage House; brittle and overcompensating while he started to settle in; and the most recent, the shades of who he is under all of the damage being in the system can do, but he hasn't seen this before. Kurt is relaxed but confident, even a little arrogant, and utterly in control. Watching Kurt in his element like this makes Blaine feel a lot of things, but he's not surprised to realize that the most prominent one is pride.

"Have you finished with the seating chart yet?" Kurt asks, interrupting his woolgathering.

"Mm, yeah. It's... somewhere around here." Blaine thumbs through a stack of papers, passing the chart over to Kurt for approval once he's found it.

Kurt eyes it critically, undoubtedly checking and cross-checking the table arrangements. Blaine would assure Kurt that he's not ignorant enough to stick the county administrative assistant next to the TANF chairman after their embarrassing motel escapades last year, but he's already learned that he's got to pick his battles when it comes to Kurt and party-planning, and this is one to pass on.

"Hey," Kurt says, tapping the end of his pencil against the seating chart. "That's... I know them."

Blaine peers over Kurt's shoulder to see. "Oh, the Berrys? They've donated consistently since I opened this place up. Really helped us out a lot."

"Their daughter is in Glee club with me. Rachel." Kurt arches an eyebrow, a malicious sort of humor on his face. "She's like a fly that you keep trying to swat at but never manage to squash, so she just buzzes around your head all day." He pauses, considering, and his tone turns mild. "But, my _god_ , she can sing."

Blaine's quiet a moment, trying to read between the lines. "How is Glee club? I haven't heard much since the audition."

Kurt shrugs carefully. "It's fine. We might do a showcase at the next assembly. Of course, I'll be stuck in the back while Rachel sings all of the solos and does overly dramatic West Side Story hand gestures, but I'm used to it." He waves a hand. "Buzz, buzz."

Blaine chuckles and pushes up the sleeves of his cardigan, about to say, _Maybe I could come watch you perform?_ when the door in the front room chimes and voices flood in.

"What, no leather daddies and drag queens lined up to meet me? You've gotta at least show me to the free condom bowl."

"Cute," Blaine hears Charlie say in a weary tone that he extensively knows means _douchebag_.

Kurt's eyebrows furrow, the downturn of his mouth decidedly unimpressed. He reaches out a hand to Blaine, who blinks at it until Kurt gestures expectantly at his notepad and folder with its pages nearly spilling out. Blaine passes them over on his way to the front door to find Charlie with a dubious expression and his hands in his pockets, and someone who can only be Justin peering around the hallway with his eyebrows raised. He's not carrying much, just a backpack and a small rolling suitcase, but that's by no means unusual.

"Hi," Blaine says, and Justin shifts to face him. Blaine goes for the same polite smile he uses on everybody -- too much enthusiasm and the kids get weirded out or start making fun of him the minute they're in the door, which he learned the hard way. Blaine's naturally exuberant, but Charlie was the first person to ever say anything to him about it. _"You need to put a leash on your face, man."_ "I'm Blaine."

Justin doesn't answer. His angular blonde eyebrows creep up even closer to his hairline. "Where am I sleeping?"

"We don't know yet, I'm sorry. We're waiting for another guest before we make any rooming decisions."

Justin mouths _guest_ with an incredulous tilt of his head, and the eyebrows finally come down. For the first time Blaine can see that this kid isn't bad looking, in a broad-jawed, big-featured kind of way. He looks around twenty, too, but the info Blaine was given says he's only seventeen. "Well, that's great. Can I at least put my stuff somewhere?"

Blaine nods. He's not sure if Justin's going to be this standoffish for his entire stay, but he can do what he wants so long as he generally abides by the rules. Blaine's pretty sure Charlie will eventually side-eye any attitude into the ground, anyway. He's good like that. "Sure. For now let's set it in the living room and we can fill out some paperwork."

"Paperwork?"

"Yeah," Blaine says, leading Justin into the living room. "Charlie, do you have his file?"

Charlie nods and disappears to grab it, and Blaine tells Justin to sit down and make himself comfortable, and apparently the height of comfort is to be perched on the arm of the couch. He dumps his backpack onto the ground and keeps his suitcase in front of him.

"We've just got some basic rules and a sort of roommate agreement." To Blaine's surprise, it isn't Charlie who comes back into the room with Justin's paperwork, but Kurt. It stalls him out for a moment, but he takes the proffered file and pen and nods. "Thanks, Kurt."

"Charlie's starting dinner," Kurt informs him, arms crossing in front of his chest. He's very obviously ignoring Justin's presence, and Blaine can't really figure it out. It's not just about Kurt's peculiar set of etiquette that, once offended, inspires remarkable disdain, thought that must be part of it. This, though, is downright defensive, and they haven't said two words to each other. "Let me know if you have any special requests."

"Are you on any special diet, Justin? Vegan, vegetarian?"

Justin's eyeing Kurt with a look of private amusement. "Nope."

"Any allergies?"

"Nope," he says again, with a tinge of irritation.

Blaine shrugs at Kurt. "Whatever Charlie wants to make is fine."

"All right." Kurt stands there for a moment longer before dropping his arms and pivoting on his heel. But not before Blaine catches the fleetingly bitchy look he aims at Justin, and Justin would have to be an idiot not to catch it too, given that he's staring right at him. "I'm making dessert," says, with enough weight for a parting shot.

Blaine's got to ask him about that later, because Kurt's almost funny when he's so ruffled, and it was practically from out of _nowhere_.

"Kurt's quite the chef," Blaine offers, when Justin still hasn't turned to look at him and is staring off into the space where Kurt stood. "It's one of his duties during the week, but I think he'd do it even if he wasn't signed up for it."

"Oh, I'll bet," Justin says in a droll, definitely pointed voice, and Blaine's eyes narrow, but he doesn't respond.

He pulls out the sheaf of paperwork, takes a mental breath, and dives into the spiel he's given at least fifty times.

\--

Blaine had to fight hard to keep his face neutral while they went over the paperwork. Nearly every single box Blaine hated to check, the ones most kids had the insight to lie about, were ticked off. Justin looked bored the entire time, giving him droning yeses and nos and never flickering. Still, he didn't send people away for poor choices, but he did put extra emphasis on the part about a ban on all illegal activities.

During dinner, he keeps a thoughtful eye on Justin and Kurt, but nothing happens. No interaction, no staring, no huffiness from Kurt's corner. Justin hung out in the living room to keep close to his stuff. Blaine's had issues with stealing at the house before, but not much, and he reassured him that it'll be fine where it is, but Justin stayed put until Blaine came to get him.

Justin's seated between Tracy and Charlie, but pretty much the only person he talks to is Tom. Tom tends to get along with guys unless he’s surly that day or until he feels rejected or usurped, but it'd be nice to see him make a friend. Justin asked Charlie to pass the salt, but otherwise that's it, interaction-wise.

Kurt brings out his dessert, and he must have decided to pull out all the stops for the new kids because it's some gooey, decadent thing he announces is chocolate cake with crème anglaise. He finishes his description and his explanation of the plating -- "dark chocolate streaks, for flair" -- and allows himself a pleased, satisfied smile when the doorbell rings.

Blaine's relieved. Melissa was supposed to be there hours ago, and he'd left a voicemail with her case worker when she'd failed to show before five-thirty. He puts his napkin next to his plate and pushes his chair back from the table.

"It looks delicious, Kurt. Save me one?"

Kurt nods, looking deflated, a dainty serving spoon in his hand.

Melissa's, like, four inches taller than Blaine, and she's wearing flats. She seems startled when he swings open the door, and he affords her a cheerier smile than the one he gave Justin. Dinner was good, and food always perks him up, and not to mention, Melissa hasn't had a chance to ruin her first impression yet.

"Hi?" she tries, hoisting her bag higher over her shoulder, behind which he can see her case worker lurking. She's got a fair amount of luggage at her feet, too, and the bag looks heavy.

"Yes, hi, you're Melissa, right? I'm Blaine. Welcome to the house," he says, moving back so she can come in. "I can help with your bags, if you'd like."

She hesitates but only for a second. "Sure, that would be nice."

Melissa passes him and stands in the foyer while Blaine awkwardly tries to manhandle her suitcase, which is somehow heavier than the already bulky mammoth it _looks_ like. It bangs against his shins a lot, and he tries to look as dignified as possible while setting it down.

Melissa's case worker brings in the other bag and closes the door behind her. "I just need to sign her over into your care," she says, and Blaine immediately pats his pockets for a pen while Melissa watches them awkwardly, unsure of what to do.

She doesn't have a clipboard, so Blaine ends up scrawling a shaky version of his signature and initials all over floppy papers, trying as best he can to prop them stiff with his other hand. It's as fast as that and she's out with barely a goodbye, but it's Thursday at six and people who are not Blaine tend to have lives.

"We just finished up dinner, but we saved you a plate, if you're hungry. There's snacks, too."

"It's okay. I already ate."

"You can leave your stuff in here while we get you settled. I haven't quite figured out where everyone goes -- we got two of you in one day, which is awesome, but kind of a puzzle."

"That's okay." She slowly lowers the bag down one skinny arm to the floor, and now that Blaine's in better light, he can see the hint of a bruise under her eye. Her file didn't say much, just that her previous foster family cited _behavior difficulties_ and kicked her back to the state. Blaine's pretty good at reading people, and unless she's got some hidden well of rage (entirely possible; he thought Tom seemed well-adjusted when he came in), she seems fairly meek.

"There's dessert. I haven't had any yet, but I'm pretty sure it's fabulous."

"No, I'm fine."

He figures it's in their best interests to go over the house rules as fast as possible and get her a bed. It doesn't seem likely that she's going to turn especially chatty, and Blaine will only make her more uncomfortable as he prods.

Courage House doesn't get very many transsexuals, for whatever reason. They're no different from any other client, no more or less difficult -- although if they're on hormones they require a few more trips to the doctor than on average. Still, the majority of people who pass through the house are gay males, and that makes the roommate situation tricky at best.

He's not sure how to ask Tracy -- it's probably going to be Tracy, he knows -- if she's comfortable sharing her room. He doesn't particularly give a fuck if she isn't, that's her problem, but he can't in good conscience room Melissa with someone who's going to make her feel at all unwelcome. If Tracy balks, he'll know he has to figure something else out.

While he's trying to find the best way to approach her, Kurt comes out carrying a plate of his cake with a fork balanced on the edge.

"I brought cake," he says gaily, and he's not looking at Blaine. "If you don't eat it, I will, and it'll be ugly." His hand pulls back a little. "Unless you're allergic?"

"I'm not allergic," Melissa says, tucking her hands into the back pockets of her jeans, and her torso sticks out in all angles, collarbone, jutting shoulders, spindly arms. She's way too skinny, and way too tall to afford to be at whatever weight she's at. "But you don't have to bring me any."

Kurt's expression never falters. Blaine knows she's going to end up eating the cake even if she hates chocolate with passion. "Of course I do. I'm the welcoming committee." He holds the cake out to her. "You're welcome."

Blaine coughs a laugh into his fist and Melissa, luckily, looks amused too. "Thanks, I guess," she says, taking it from him and picking up the fork to poke at the side of the cake.

"So. Melissa. Do you know who you're rooming with?"

She pauses with a forkful of cake in midair. "Um."

Sometimes, and only sometimes, Blaine wishes Kurt wasn't quite so insouciant. _Awkward_. "I haven't really figured it out. I've gotta talk to you guys."

Kurt's eyes narrow, and he worries the corner of his bottom lip thoughtfully. "Well, the choices seem obvious enough. You can't room her with Tom, I wouldn't -- " he cuts himself off and starts again. "Not with Justin. I suppose Tracy would do."

"I'll have to ask her," Blaine says, trying not to sound irritated. Kurt's not usually so oblivious --

"No, you won't. Melissa, you should room with me." He says it matter of factly, the same needling Kurt who gets people to eat his cake and to go against their better judgment by getting into some sort of relationship with him. It's impressive.

"I... Okay?" she sounds out slowly, looking from Blaine to Kurt and back again. "Sure?"

"I promise, I'm very respectful," Kurt says brightly. "And tidy. And I don't snore. And I'll go clear you out a space in our closet right now, actually." He pivots on his heel for the second time that day, this time with far less dramatic flair. He seems... genuine, even if it's not quite excitement. Blaine can't believe he's actually giving up his room.

Or Kurt's _not_ oblivious. In the slightest. Big surprise there.

Melissa looks a little lost. Blaine gives her a sheepish smile. "That's Kurt. He --" Blaine debates the myriad of things he could say, and settles on something fairly objective and comforting that doesn't sound like inappropriate gushing. "He really will make a good roommate."

\--

"Aren't you going to offer me something to drink?" Kurt asks, composed as ever, as he helps himself to a seat on Blaine's couch.

As much as he'd like to, Blaine can't claim that he was honestly surprised to find Kurt waiting outside his door, cheerfully zipped up in a military-esque jacket with a jaunty scarf. Noting that Kurt seemed to be amassing an army of accessories, Blaine let him in with a resigned smile and a genuine, "you look nice."

Bemused, he opens up the refrigerator door. "I've got water, milk, and 7-Up left over from Tracy's birthday party."

"Blaine. That was two and a half months ago."

Blaine shrugs it off. "I don't really entertain that much."

"Water, please," Kurt says after a prolonged pause, and Blaine knows he's just barely keeping a quip behind his teeth.

"Coming right up." Blaine snags two water bottles, and while he's tempted to hand it to Kurt as-is, he figures using a glass every now and then won't kill him. Inevitably, Blaine's on edge about Kurt being in his apartment -- being _alone_ with Kurt in his apartment, but Kurt has on his trademark nonchalance today, along with the scarf. He's up and off the couch, poking around at the trinkets on Blaine's shelves, picking up his picture frames and turning them into the light.

"You look young here," Kurt points out, and for once it doesn't sound like a jibe at his age, but rather an off-hand observation. "Who is he?"

As he crosses the room, Blaine's already thinking about what the picture could be -- he's got a handful of family portraits and snapshots from college and grad school tucked behind the more recent pictures taken at Courage House.

"Oh." He hasn't looked at, or even thought about, that one in years. He's shoulder-to-shoulder with a sandy-haired man in the picture, grinning wide and sunburned at the bank of a river. The man is holding a paddle, half-out of a wetsuit, hair tipped with droplets of water. "That was my junior year at Northwestern." Blaine hesitates at the rest of the explanation -- he definitely hasn't dated enough seventeen year olds to know the protocol for discussing past relationships. "He was my boyfriend, at the time."

"He's cute," Kurt says flippantly, but his eyes have taken on a focus. "Tall. Blond. Athletic."

Blaine sets the glasses down on his entertainment center so he can ease a hand over Kurt's shoulder, letting his fingers fall one-by-one against the fabric of his jacket. He hums a little, considering the photo and the memories and what Kurt must be thinking. "I keep it as proof that at one time I made it across the river without capsizing the kayak. I wasn't really into that sort of stuff, but he was." Blaine pauses. "It was a fun semester."

Their relationship lasted much longer than the semester, but he's wise enough not to say that. The tension Kurt is radiating, and badly trying to mask with faked nonchalance, is speaking volumes. And, honestly, as Blaine looks at the photo and the boy standing directly in front of him, he feels the dissonance of what he used to want and what he shouldn't want but does.

"This one," Kurt says next, selecting another picture. Blaine's in his high school uniform with the ill-fitting gray slacks, caught mid-song as a line of blazered boys two-step behind him. He feels worlds away from that teenage boy, though the span of his shoulders is barely any broader and he still gels his hair the same.

Blaine feels a warm rush of nostalgia. "Ah, the Warblers."

"The _Warblers_?" Kurt echoes, smothering a laugh. "Really?"

"Don't laugh," Blaine chides, but in reality -- even decades later -- he's so inured to the jokes they don't even land anymore. "The Warblers were, like, rock stars. We almost went to Nationals when I was the lead soloist."

"Wow, almost. I'm standing next to someone who _almost_ went to a national show choir competition." Kurt's sardonic tone fades, and he taps his finger against the glass of the frame absently. "I know who they are. I didn't make the connection between Dalton and the Warblers." He sits the frame down and exactingly nudges it back into place on the shelf. "We're going up against them at sectionals."

Blaine whistles. "I haven't seen them perform in a while, but if they're anything like when _I_ was there, you guys are going to have a tough time of it."

Kurt snorts. "Rachel looked them up on Youtube. They're a doo-wop group in blazers. And the lead isn't anywhere near as cute as you."

"Well," Blaine says, pulling Kurt into a hug from behind, and not quite sure if he should feel flattered or insulted on behalf of the Warblers, "who is?"

Kurt relaxes against him instantly, Blaine's front fitting snug to his back; Blaine even sways a little under the shift of weight Kurt has put on him. He tucks his chin over Kurt's shoulder and kisses the side of his neck. He smells so good, even though Blaine doesn't think he uses anything terribly special. His shampoo, maybe.

"Are you smelling me?" Kurt asks, sounding delighted.

"Maybe," Blaine admits. He squeezes Kurt around his middle and drops his hands away. "Come on, let's sit down. My bookshelves are boring."

He kind of doesn't want to find out if there are other pictures of ex-boyfriends hidden back there.

They sit down together, Kurt automatically crossing his legs before he realizes that it's blocking some of Blaine's access to him; he recrosses them the opposite way. Blaine wants to touch him, even if it's just resting a hand on his thigh, but he's reticent to turn every moment alone into something with a sexual element.

Kurt acts on the impulse for him by trailing his fingers up Blaine's forearm. He feels it keenly even through the material of his shirt. He looks open, face tipped toward Blaine, but there's no rush -- Blaine has no plans for them to rush into, anyway.

"How was school?" he asks.

"Oh, you know. Long, intellectually stifling." He keeps moving his fingers over Blaine, stopping to trace circles at his pulse. The light sensation chases a shiver up his spine. "Do you really want to talk about this? I haven't had much time with you lately and thinking about McKinley will just make me depressed." Kurt lets his head tip onto Blaine's shoulder, amiable and undemanding.

"Depressed?" Blaine would protest that they always have time together, but it's not what Kurt means. Sitting at the kitchen table with kids coming in and out while Charlie tries to install new cabinets behind them isn't the same as this, as the intimacy they have right now.

Kurt closes his eyes, pained. "Do you know how much polyester blend travels through those halls?" He says it as if the situation holds a gravity that Blaine cannot possibly grasp. "Just thinking about it makes me feel light-headed."

Blaine goes to chuckle right as Kurt scratches his nail over the thin, sensitive skin at his wrist, and the air gets stuck in his throat. The little noise he makes is tight and caught, and he has to clear his throat to get oxygen traveling properly again. If Kurt elicits that sort of reaction by touching his _wrist_ , Blaine's brain is going to splinter at the first proper touch.

"All right?" Kurt opens his eyes to look up at him, a smile lurking around the corners of his lips.

"Yep," Blaine says, dropping his nose into Kurt's hair. It's easier if he doesn't try to take on those blue eyes. "This is nice, being like this."

Kurt shifts beside him, stretching with a languorous curve of his spine. "Mhm," he agrees, and in the next moment drops his fingers from Blaine's wrist to his thigh, tracing the same patterns on the seam of his pants.

Blaine pauses, enjoying the soothing effect of Kurt tucked so close, even if he's a little preoccupied by what may lie behind it. "Kurt, you do know... just because we're alone doesn't mean something has to -- happen?"

Kurt doesn't pull away, but there's now a careful stiffness to him.. "We don't exactly have many opportunities _for_ something to happen."

"I know that," Blaine says, awkwardly rubbing his hand over Kurt's. "I'm just saying. We could just watch a movie. Or talk."

"We talk all the time," Kurt says. "But if you'd rather just watch something..." He starts to get up off the couch, bangs falling into his eyes that he doesn't immediately sweep aside.

"No, no, hey," Blaine says, leaning after Kurt to grab his wrist as he moves toward the entertainment center. When Kurt stops short and looks at Blaine, he tilts his head expectantly. His face is far less petulant than Blaine would have assumed from his words; it's cool, but there's no real tension in it. "That's not what I meant." His fingers span Kurt's wrist, hard bone and soft skin. "I don't want you to think I expect anything," he says, figuring bluntness is best. "Last time we went a little... fast."

Kurt's eyebrows rise, and his hand twitches in Blaine's grasp, so Blaine lets go. " _We_ went a little fast? No, last time _you_ went a little fast, and it's okay, Blaine, I _liked_ it, but now I'm telling you what I want. Remember how we decided not to make decisions for each other?"

Though Blaine's finally getting a decent picture of things, he's too curious and too aware of how right Kurt is to not ask. "What do you want?"

Kurt closes his eyes, a disbelieving smile tugging at his mouth. "What do you _think_ , Blaine?"

"Well," Blaine says, "I'm not sure. If I had to make a guess--"

Kurt _gapes_ at him and it's uncannily like being pounced on by an angry cat when he pushes Blaine back into the couch and straddles him, knees digging into each side of Blaine's hips. "You're so--" he says, this ineffable mixture of wide-eye astonishment and vexation. "You are so frustrating," he finishes, the seal of his mouth to Blaine's like a punctuation mark.

It's whiplash, going from not touching Kurt to having an insistent lap full of him. He recovers quickly, though, hands finding their way to Kurt's hips, and Blaine tries his best to keep up with the kiss as Kurt directs it, licking all the way over his lower lip.

Once Blaine relaxes and lets his weight fall into the cushions, Kurt seems to feel it and stops holding his perch above Blaine, his ass settling on Blaine's thighs.

Blaine shifts forward -- to settle Kurt better or get more space, he's not sure -- but Kurt just presses in tighter, pinning Blaine with his hips. The momentum jostles Kurt to the side, and Blaine uses his palms on Kurt's ass to push him straight on his lap again but Kurt's struggling to get at Blaine's fly, which --

"Wait, Kurt," he says, dumbfounded, chin down so he can stare as Kurt's knuckles bump against the fabric of his clothes as he tries to clumsily unzip him.

Kurt's sliding entirely off of his lap now, both at Blaine's urgent hands pushing him away so they can _think_ about this, but also because he's realizing that the angle is much easier this way. He has no idea where this came from, or how Kurt was hiding it from him )or more likely how Blaine failed to notice, he's been good at that), and especially doesn't know how on earth how he's supposed to have the willpower to try and stop him, when this is what he so badly wants every time they're somewhere private.

He's getting hard, of course he's getting hard, Kurt's _undoing his pants_ and brief, accidental brushes from Kurt's fingers against the length of him aren't helping matters, but it's not like Blaine can switch off his brain and let this run its course. Something about the way Kurt is looking at him, head down, single-minded, his bangs still sweeping over his forehead, is like he's barreling through this before his courage runs out.

"Honey, you don't have to," Blaine tries, stalling Kurt's progress with his own fingers.

"I know I don't have to," Kurt says, piercing Blaine with an indignant look and knocking his hands out of the way. "I want to. I want to touch you." The last dips low in confession, achingly sincere.

Any chance Blaine gets with Kurt, he snaps. He wants to glut himself on the feel of his body, the wet of his mouth, chasing it all before it can slip away. He has to let that tight feeling in his chest run itself out as much as it can. Blaine has to take care of Kurt, make him _feel_ everything Blaine can give him, make him know in his bones and his heart how much Blaine wants him.

He gives so much he _takes_. Blaine cringes at his own stupid greed. He's getting really tired of realizing that he can't make assumptions without fucking everything up along the way.

Blaine's zipper drag downs its teeth with barely a hitch, and Kurt pops his button open like he's done it a hundred times. Kurt's a wunderkind with his teeth working over his lip, instinct showing him how to reverse everything he does to himself to make it work.

Kurt stops when the fabric of Blaine's pants spreads enough to see what's under, the obscene bulge of his cock through his boxer briefs. Blaine chances a look at Kurt's face to gauge what's happening, if this is freaking him out.

Kurt shakes his head. "Cotton?" he says, spreading the fabric even wider and -- as though it's incidental -- runs two fingers up his clothed erection, stopping at the band at Blaine's waist. He pushes Blaine's shirt up only a scant few inches but doesn't touch the strip of bared skin. "You can't do better than cotton?"

"What?" Blaine manages, as Kurt skims his knuckles up and down.

"Plain white cotton. It's just so boring." He uses the fact that Blaine has turned to stare at him to his advantage and leans in for a kiss, and the tremble of his lips shows he isn't as unaffected as he's pretending to be. Blaine's somewhat reassured by that and leans into the kiss, but then it's over.

There's no warning and nothing unsteady about Kurt's hands as he hooks his fingers in Blaine's waistband and pulls. He glances down, staggered, and it looks -- fucking _filthy_ , the sudden exposure, the fact that Kurt hasn't pulled him all the way out and the hem of Blaine's shirt is nearly brushing against the head of his cock. He can't look at himself or Kurt's pale hand, which has frozen above him. He switches back to the only place he can look, Kurt's profile, the shell of his ear.

"Kurt," he rasps, when touch continues not to come and Kurt's face doesn't change from its wide-eyed, fixed stare.

Kurt swallows and he looks _terrified_ , but before Blaine can cover himself and do damage control, he draws in a breath and regains the same steadiness he had before.

He wraps his fingers around Blaine and using his other hand to push his underwear down a little more. He uses fast, strong strokes all the way up and down, close enough to the way Blaine does it to seriously stun him. "I don't know what I'm doing," he says, keeping up the rhythm.

"Oh my God." Blaine watches his own body tremble as this thing, this crazy _thing_ , happens to him.

He's in his living room, on the couch he deliberately pretends to have forgotten the price of because it's shameful, and Blaine can't remember the last time he was _kissed_ on it. He wonders if anyone he knew at seventeen would have had the temerity to jack off a man while he's still wearing his clothes -- no one at _thirty_ ever thought that the hell up. Kurt keeps finding new ways to undo him, but Blaine wouldn't have anticipated anything this sordid ever, never fucking _ever_ , in his most indecent dreams.

"Tell me if I'm doing it wrong." Kurt smears precome around the head, neatly trimmed fingernail sliding sweetly sharp over the slit.

"Oh, shit, just like that, oh _shit_."

He's so swollen, and his underwear is too tight right on his balls, but it's just more stimulation as he watches Kurt thoroughly work him over, up and down, squeezing the circle of his fingers, emboldened by Blaine’s reactions to go faster and harder. Sometimes Blaine gets himself off this way, with not enough slick, when he's desperate and thinking about dirty shit he twitches over later. Kurt's _perfect_ , he's perfect, where did he come from?

Blaine edges closer and closer, and when he starts whimpering, Kurt dives in and kisses him. The counterpoint to what is possibly the best handjob of his life is getting him there even faster.

"I'm close," Blaine warns. Kurt squeezes so hard he fucks his hips up into it, back bowing. "Oh god, you should -- I'm going to come all over my shirt."

Kurt doesn't slow down or push Blaine's shirt up; his kissing turns so sloppy he licks Blaine's _chin_. Blaine shakes and starts shoving his hips up with every stroke now, unable to stop with Kurt practically yanking his orgasm from him.

Blaine tries to say something, makes a desperate sound he chokes on, and starts to come all over himself, steaks on his shirt, shiny white catching on Kurt's knuckles. He has to close his eyes so the overstimulation won't start to hurt. Kurt just won't stop and it's too much but he's still sort of coming as he does it, locking up and moaning through gritted teeth.

Kurt stops, finally, and Blaine can hear both of them panting -- Kurt quieter, like he's tamping down on it -- now that he's coming out of it.

When he opens his eyes, Kurt is staring at Blaine's come all over his hand like he has absolutely no idea what to do about it. It shouldn't send a rush of heat through Blaine's body, make his dick throb with soreness, but it does.

"My shirt's already a mess," he says, somehow lifting his arm to cradle Kurt's wrist and guide it to his own ruined shirt. Kurt halfheartedly wipes it clean and rests his hand further up where it isn't -- gross. Blaine reels him in, not caring about how he's messy and indecent and is probably going to have a small crisis later.

Kurt gets as close as he can, drawing his legs up onto the couch and tucking himself up as small as possible, his head resting on Blaine's shoulder. "Blaine," Kurt says, a tremulous voice, so tiny Blaine feels it more than hears it.

What can he even say? He tilts his head to rest it atop Kurt's and rubs his thumb as soothingly as he can manage along Kurt's back. He closes his eyes and breathes in, trying to hold them both together.

\--


	5. Chapter Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, there is a mentioning of off-screen vomiting.

Mia's waiting for him just inside the front door when Blaine gets to work. Normally at the end of her noc shift, Mia looks rejuvenated, and she usually goes off to do something impressive -- last week she manned a booth at some sort of craft fair. Today, though, she's scowling so deeply it's making her look haggard. Blaine glances down at his watch to make sure he didn't lose track of time, but no, he didn't.

"What is it?" he asks warily.

"I had to write up a report on Justin last night," she says. "And again this morning, just before you got here."

"Shit."

They tend not to document every single instance of misbehavior, because _teenagers_ , but if things get dangerous or too heated, they have no qualms about writing it up and issuing warnings. Three strike system, and then a case worker gets called. Blaine's only had to kick out three people in the history of the house, and the very last thing on his agenda is making that an even number.

"It's all in the report, and you can decide if he's grounded or what, but we need to keep an eye on him."

The balloon of private contentment Blaine had been enjoying since last night has been soundly popped. "I'll talk to him. Was it physical?"

"No. He gave Melissa a bunch of shit," she stops, like she's going to elaborate, but she has an internal struggle and ends up shrugging jerkily. "It's in the report. This morning he went after _me_ for calling him on it."

Mia can take care of herself. She's small, and the oversized leather jacket she drowns in half of the time makes her seem even smaller, but the first time Blaine walked in on her throwing a six foot something guy into a headlock, he stopped underestimating her. "I've got this. Go home and take a bath, decompress."

Now that she's passed the torch of the Justin issue to Blaine, she seems calm. "I've got things to do, but that's a nice sentiment. I'll see you tonight."

He heads to the files the second she's gone. Justin's is thin, only the barest minimum of paperwork, but there's the new addition of two incident reports, covered front and back in Mia's writing. Most of it is ass-covering in the event the case workers get curious, date and times and witnesses, but it's right there in the middle of the first page.

_Justin E. asked resident M. "who's getting first run at your new cunt?"_

Blaine's eyes blur with rage and sadness -- he can't even imagine what Melissa would have felt like in that moment -- and he has to stop for a moment and breathe so he can _see_ to keep reading.

He reads the report so fast he can barely comprehend it. The little fucker didn't so much as apologize, and Mia's presumably impressive verbal lashing must have festered overnight, because what he said to her was almost as awful.

Blaine slides the reports back into Justin's file and slams the filing cabinet drawer shut with an ugly clang. His stiff hands have trouble fitting the key into the lock and turning.

\--

Justin sits mostly silent through what Blaine hopes is an effective intervention. He wants to know what's inside Justin that makes him so insufferable, but he's so mad he's lecturing between gritted teeth. His anger had faded somewhat during the day, simply because he couldn't sustain that level of energy for so long, but the minute he saw Melissa slinking into the house and making a beeline to her room, it spiked again.

"I won't even speak to him, okay? You don't have to keep riding me," Justin said, when Blaine paused to take a breath and debate how best to continue.

" _Her_ ," Blaine corrects, lit like a match all over again. Living through homophobia is rending, and it creeps in from unexpected corners nearly every day, offhand comments and just plain exclusion. Blaine is _used_ to it, is the thing, but he has no idea where to start with transphobia. He doesn't know what it's like for Melissa, so he has no idea how to combat it. "If you want to stay, you have to show some basic respect for the people here. Melissa, the rest of the clients. Mia. Me."

Justin is motionless, eyes trained on something in the middle distance. "Okay," he says, quietly. "Fine."

"Your prejudice, it's just ignorance, Justin. And I can't have it in this house."

Looking thoroughly cowed, Justin nods. He's gripping the arms of his chair tightly. Blaine sighs and rubs a hand over his face, tapped out. He says he can go, and Justin uses that grip to shove himself up and away like a rocket.

Melissa only leaves her room once to grab dinner when everyone was cleared out. He wants to say something to her -- apologize, remedy the fact that so far, this safe house has been anything but. Courage House is _his_ , and he can't help this instinct to take care of it, knowing in some deep-rooted place inside of him that he is in some small fashion responsible for everyone in it.

Blaine knocks at her door and hears Kurt call out a "yes?"

"It's Blaine," he says, and smiles to himself when Kurt's tone lifts considerably with a "come in."

Melissa and Kurt are sitting on their respective beds -- twin, although despite their size Blaine knows they're comfortable -- facing each other. Kurt's homework is in a forgotten pile near his bare feet, and he looks uncharacteristically relaxed, dressed simply for sleep, his hair unstyled.

"Hi," Kurt says with a smile.

"Hi," Blaine echoes, leaning against the doorframe, trying to keep his smile as closed-mouthed and un-idiotic as possible.

It's a long moment before he realizes that one, he's not there for Kurt, and two, smiling at each other like this is a bad, bad, _bad_ idea. Their makeshift rules didn't cover inappropriate gazing, but still, Blaine knows better. He shakes himself out of it and turns his attention to Melissa. From the looks of things, they were deep in conversation, which is poor timing on Blaine's part; Melissa needs friends, and _Kurt_ needs friends. It's too late for Blaine to back out now, however; their private moment has been barged in on.

"Melissa," Blaine says, directing all of his attention to her. "Do you mind if we talk for a few minutes?"

She shrugs. "Sure."

Kurt stands up from his bed. "I'm going to get a snack," he announces so smoothly it might as well not be a gracious way of excusing himself. "Does anyone want anything while I'm in the kitchen?"

"I'm still full," Melissa says, and Blaine shakes his head.

"Great. I'm going to eat an entire bag of popcorn by myself," Kurt sighs, and Blaine's still blocking the door, so their arms brush when he passes by.

Once he's inside, the door left open a crack so he doesn't make her feel trapped, he doesn't really know where to start -- or what to do with himself in general. Sit, or stand? He doesn't think of himself as intimidating but standing above her is a bad idea. Melissa's by no means hostile, but her silence isn't quite natural, not in the way Michael's was. It's loaded. Blaine's glad she seems to be talking to Kurt.

He stays standing, because the only place he can sit is her bed (no way in hell) or Kurt's, and Kurt would likely have no problem with it, but it's presuming an awful lot.

Blaine tucks his hands in his pockets, done waffling. "I know we haven't really had a chance to talk. And since you don't know me at all, it's pretty lame of me to come in here and give you platitudes out of nowhere. So I'm trying not to. I just wanted to say that what happened was awful." He wants so badly to promise her that it won't happen again, but he can't do that. "If it happens again, whoever does it, they're out. You're supposed to be safe here, and you haven't been. I'm sorry."

Blaine stops there, unsure if it's coming out right. He feels like he's giving her the platitudes he swore he'd try and avoid. Melissa's still just looking at him, and he can't tell what her silence means. No doubt people have said the same things to her only to trample all over them, but Blaine means it and he has no way of proving that it isn't just lip service. He feels like making a giant sign that says "I'M SINCERE" -- with Kurt's help so it wouldn't come out tacky and covered in glitter.

"So, yeah," he says.

Melissa laughs. Maybe. A little. She breaks eye contact and huffs out a breath that doesn't seem irritated, at least. It gives him enough of a push to keep trying.

"I'm just-- if it _does_ happen again and the staff doesn't hear it, you should come to me. Or Mia, or any of us. If you feel like can't do that, you can tell Kurt. Anybody. You need to know that you're not alone with this."

"That's really nice and everything," she says plainly, sudden and startling after Blaine's low-voiced, probably too-impassioned speech. "But I know that already. This isn't the first time I've dealt with it."

"I know," he says. "That doesn't make it okay, and you still deserve to hear it."

She meets and holds his gaze, and he tries to pour everything into it. He wants her to be okay, he wants her to be happy, and safe, and he'll keep trying to get that for her.

This time, there's no ambiguity in her reaction. Her lip quirks in something resembling a smile, the most expression he's seen on her face, and he smiles back. "Thanks."

"I'll leave you alone now," he says, feeling lighter if not accomplished. One conversation doesn't make much of a dent in the overall situation, but he tries. "Goodnight."

"Night," she replies, reaching for something on her nightstand as he leaves.

Kurt's waiting in the hallway, just left of the open doorway, when Blaine steps out and lets their door fall shut behind him. The popcorn bowl is tucked under his arm and he's contemplatively picking a few kernels out, focused inward. He looks up to Blaine with a headtilt, then holds out the bowl. "Fat-free."

He scoops out a handful, flashing Kurt a smile as thanks. They chew in silence for a moment, tangled up in their own thoughts, and then Kurt pushes off the wall and says, "Good speech."

Blaine drags his hand through the hair at the nape of his neck, gaze drifting down to study the faint stains in the carpet. "Thanks. I've certainly made better."

"No." Kurt takes one step closer than he should, his toe inching into the space between Blaine's feet. "I meant that. You're good at this. A lot of people say a lot of different things to us, but you care," Kurt says simply.

Pulling Kurt to him and burying his face in his shiny, shiny, sweet-smelling hair seems like the best idea in the world right now, but he manages to quell the impulse. He hopes the magnitude of his appreciation shows on his face, and he exhales a humble and open-hearted "thank you."

Kurt backs out of his space with a pleased smile and pops another fluffy kernel into his mouth. "Of course. Now," he commands, holding out the popcorn bowl, "can you please take this away from me before I finish it?"

\--

Blaine doesn't spend as much time at the high schools and community centers as his employees do -- his job tends to keep him stationed behind a desk while they run the errands -- but the amount of work to do always overflows, and he never minds helping out.

He's been to McKinley High a half-dozen times before, but the school still feels odd to him. It's something about the too-bright fluorescent lights, the cheap tile, and the way the students kick their way down the halls, unbridled and unapologetic. His old high school, Dalton, was contained and ordered, a place where boys walked through well-shined halls in matching blazers and ties, and anything it lacked in individuality it made up for in security. He's tried to build Courage House in the same spirit: _house_ to let them know that they have somewhere they can call their own, a home with security, family, and rules, too, and _courage_ to teach them not to be afraid of how their voice sounds when they speak out loud.

He makes sure to lock his car door behind him -- he knows how teenagers are -- and then traces out the familiar path from the visitor parking lot to the McKinley front office. It's the only part of the school he visits with any regularity, and as he tucks his hands into his pockets he reassures himself that it's the same as any other visit, even if the student that he's here for is... different.

"Here to pick up Kurt Hummel," he tells the woman behind the desk, smiling patiently. The office is hushed and no one seems to be making eye contact with anyone else, but he understands the social protocol underneath it. It reminds him of his family's dinner table, dissatisfaction smoothed over with politesse.

"His dad?" she asks, seamlessly transitioning from her computer screen to a clipboard without looking up at him.

"Ah, no," Blaine replies, and he'd clarify but his attention is caught on a crudely-photoshopped flyer stapled to the notice board next to him. _Pep Rally for Our Titans!_ , it says in block letters above a clip-art football player, _With a Performance by the New Directions!_.

"Relative?" Her pen taps the counter and oh, now she's looking at him.

"No--" Blaine jerks his attention back to her, but he has to ask, "The New Directions? Isn't that your Glee club?"

"Glee club?" She repeats it like she's never heard the term. "No, they're those choir kids."

"Right. That's what I meant." Blaine spares one last glance for the flyer.

She's giving him an odd look, probably debating whether or not to ask outright _who are you?_ , and he just manages to catch himself before he knocks the heel of his hand into his forehead. "Right," he says again, "I'm sorry -- Kurt. I'm his temporary guardian. I got a call from the nurse."

"That's all I need," she says, and then the clipboard is pushed in front of him. "Sign here. The nurse is at the end of the hall."

He scribbles his name down and thanks her, eager to get to Kurt despite the lack of severity to the situation. The nurse had chalked Kurt's projectile trigonometry vomit up to a twenty-four hour stomach flu that had been going around; rest, fluids, and keeping him away from the rest of the student body were her only recommendations.

Blaine raps on the door once, cautiously, and Kurt's voice answers: an unsteady, confused "what?" Blaine steps right in.

"Hey, you," he says, and he's embarrassed at how soft his voice comes out. "You ready to go home? I'll even make you soup." Kurt's alone in the room, half-upright with bleary eyes and flushed cheeks, a blanket tucked around his legs but his back pressed against the wall.

"Yes, please." Kurt tries to untangle the blanket from his legs, but he's so pathetically helpless and bleary that Blaine's over by his side in a matter of steps, pulling the blanket off, squeezing his knee, and leaving a kiss on his temple -- just like that, Justin, the charity dinner, and everything else has faded. It's Kurt, just Kurt, and the only person Blaine needs to be right now is himself. He loops his arm behind Kurt's back.

"Got him, though," Kurt mumbles as though they were mid-conversation. Blaine is trying to angle the boy's feet towards the ground, but all Kurt seems to want to do is clutch at Blaine's belt buckle and let his head loll around.

"You got who?" With a bit more careful maneuvering, Kurt is upright, more or less steady, and his hands are definitely not anywhere near Blaine's waistband. He takes as much of Kurt's weight as he can, but surprisingly he's managing to stay somewhat steady on his feet.

"Mr. Bateman. Math teacher. When I threw up." His smile is small and proud. "I got his shoes."

Blaine blinks at him, and in the next moment he's laughing, loud and unrestrained. Kurt's smile widens but he still tries to protest, "Penny loafers, Blaine. _Penny loafers._ "

Another laugh bursts out of him, and again when he realizes how dorky it sounded. "Only you," he says, squeezing Kurt's waist fondly. "Are you feeling okay enough to walk to the car?"

"I won't throw up on _your_ shoes," and Blaine guesses that's as close to an affirmative answer as he's likely to get.

Kurt grips Blaine's waist harder than Blaine is holding him, legs coltish as they walk but definitely moving. He'd normally be uneasy about so much contact in public (at Kurt's _high school_ ), but when Kurt leans into his side and nearly conks their heads together, all Blaine feels is amused and sympathetic. There's no one in the hallways, but even if there were, Kurt is quite obviously ill, and Blaine's doing nothing more than supporting his weight.

"Thank you for coming to get me," Kurt says.

"Of course." He holds the heavy outer doors open for Kurt, both of them squinting their eyes at the stark afternoon sunlight.

"Wow, Hummel, did you get roofied?"

Kurt's still picking out his steps vacantly, dependent on Blaine's grip to keep him on-track, and he can't seem to figure out where to look up to see who's talking to him. Blaine shields his eyes against the sun, automatically standing a little straighter when he sees a pair of girls in high ponytails and short skirts propped up against the brick wall ahead. They're linked arm-in-arm, the dark-haired one scanning him, appraising.

"And Ted Bundy found you, how quaint." She flutters too-long lashes at him. "He's super hot; I've always been a fan."

"Santana," Kurt grumbles, not even looking up at her. "Go crawl back into your incubator."

The cheerleader ignores him, pointedly flipping her ponytail over her shoulder as they pass. "Come back to see me sometime soon." The leer she gives him would be funny if it wasn't so disarmingly predatory. "Ay, papi."

Blaine has never been more sure that high school is not what it used to be when he was a student. He steers Kurt past them, utterly at a loss but feeling obligated to at least _try_. "Go to class, girls," he offers plaintively over his shoulder.

"Ted Bundy was an astronaut, right?" The blond girl speaks up right before they're out of earshot, letting her head tip against Santana's.

Blaine can only shake his head, bemused, but Kurt claps his hand over his mouth and digs an elbow into Blaine's side, wordlessly signaling for Blaine to get them to the car faster.

\--

Blaine's not the best planner. He used to be better at it, but now that he's trying to do fifty things at once at all times, things fall by the wayside. Occasionally important things. Kurt left him with post-it notes and an itemized list of things he needed to do, the night before the charity dinner, but Blaine managed to misplace the list and forget his seating chart at the house.

He pulls into the driveway, tires crackling over the cheap paving, and squints against early-morning glare. He figures in and out, minimum of fuss, maybe say good morning and see everyone off to the bus if he has time. Ask Mia if she's still good to show up tonight, or if she needs the sleep after her overnight. She's his sort-of platonic date, adorably enough, and he's delighted by the idea of seeing her in a black tie dress. Charlie gets to stay for a double-shift, which he isn't thrilled over, but the alternative is him going to the dinner too, and he wasn't about to do that.

"Hey, hey," Blaine calls into the house when he comes through the door, shutting out the chilly morning behind him. "Just stopping by for a second."

Kurt's nowhere to be found, probably still getting ready. Possibly the last vestiges of his flu bug are rearing up again; it took two days, a lot of Blaine soup to a curled up in his bed and miserable Kurt, and two bottles of ginger ale, but he's finally starting to bounce back.

Tracy and Justin are in the kitchen, and Charlie's bent over with his head in the fridge, making grumbling noises as he roots around. Tracy's peering over Justin's shoulder, and for once Justin isn't radiating hostility. He's flipping a pen between his fingers, looking thoughtful.

Tracy spares him a glance. "Morning."

"Morning!" He feels slightly winded in his disorganized rush and looks around the kitchen, trying to think. "Um, I'm looking for the seating chart, have you guys seen--"

Charlie straightens up, arms laden with jars and tupperware, and closes the fridge with his foot. "Kurt left it on the living room table for you."

"Awesome, thanks."

He hurries into the living room and sees the chart weighted down on the table by a candy dish with a hot pink post-it note on top that says "Don't lose me! :)" in Kurt's looping script. Blaine snorts and picks up the chart, snagging a few jellybeans for good measure.

"So are you guys ready for school?" Blaine asks when he gets back to the kitchen, the jellybeans gummy between his teeth as he tries to chew them. They're a little stale.

"Yeah, June Cleaver, we're totally going to school on a Saturday," Justin says wryly.

Blaine blinks. He totally knows what day it is. He's functioning. "Right."

There's something else Blaine needs to do before he leaves. He gives the kitchen another helpless search like it's going to materialize in front of his face. Oh, fuck, Mia. "Did Mia go home?"

"Yeah. She said she was going to get some sleep before she left for tonight."

Which means she's coming for sure. Blaine breathes a mental sigh of relief and ticks that off of his list of worries. "Great."

Justin suddenly tosses his pen down with a defeated huff. "Dude, this sucks."

Tracy clucks behind him. "You're thinking too hard. Just be genuine and it'll be fine."

"What does that even mean?" Justin demands, but not that bitchily, smiling some. "Genuine? She's eight. It's not like she's going to care."

"What are you doing?" Blaine asks, damnable curiosity getting the better of him. He licks the last of the sugar from his teeth.

Justin looks up. "It's my sister's birthday. Tracy's helping me make her a card." He says it defensively, like Blaine's going to mock him for it, and what do you know, Blaine's capable of somewhat positive (more accurately, sympathetic) feelings toward him after all.

"I drew Ariel and that fish thing on her card."

" _Flounder_ is the fish. You drew Sebastian. Who is a crab. How can you draw a crab and not know it's a crab?" He's outright laughing now, and Tracy is smirking where he can't see, clearly fucking with him.

Blaine tilts his head and grins wide. They're an unlikely pair, but Justin appears to have made a friend. He certainly needs one. "I'm sure she'll love it. I've got to hit the road. See you guys tomorrow?"

"Godspeed," Charlie says, craning to look at Blaine over his shoulder as he assembles breakfast. Yeah, Kurt's probably not feeling great if he's letting Charlie do it. Blaine spares a thought to checking on him, but Kurt gets weird if Blaine's around when he's actively ill, and he really is in a hurry.

"Thanks."

"Good luck," Tracy says, smiling at him before going back to Justin's card and gesturing at something.

He hustles back out to his car, flicking on the heater once he's got it started up. He hates the cold, and once Kurt realized that his collection of coats and scarves weren't just seasonal expressions of fashion, he teased him about it. But despite the teasing, he carries a spare pair of black gloves in his bag for when Blaine inevitably forgets his. It's still technically fall, but the shivers rushing down his spine don't know that.

Blaine's nearly home when he realizes that he doesn't have the fucking seating chart anymore. It's nowhere. It's not on the seat next to him, and when he stops at a red light, he frantically gropes around for it, peering down at the footwell, but it's not there either. He must have dropped it or set it down somewhere because he's an idiot.

"Fuck fuck fuck," he mutters, and takes a too-fast U-turn at the lights.

He literally jogs from his car to the house this time, leaving the door open behind him when he enters, too single minded to go back and close it.

When he's a few feet from the living room, he sees a flash of movement and stalls there in the hallway. He doesn't like the weight that settles in his stomach and constricts his chest then; his instincts are beeping a red alert at him.

Hushed, _furious_ whispers reach his ears, and Blaine strains his ears to hear Justin's voice. And Kurt's.

"-- leave it -- "

"No, c'mon, you have something to say?"

"-- to you."

"Have some balls, princess; say it to my face." They're both still speaking low and stifled, doubtlessly trying to conceal the conversation from the rest of the house, but Justin's tone is becoming sharp enough to cut. "Or are you just like your girlfriend -- boyfriend, whatever the fuck it is -- you get your dick and balls cut off ‘cause you couldn't handle being a man?"

Blaine feels something tight snap inside of him, and before he even makes the conscious decision to do so, he's crossing the room, furious strides eating up the distance.

"You're pathetic. You keep talking like someone cares about what you have to say, but reality check, honey -- no one gives a damn about you. Not your family, not your friends, because if they did, _you wouldn't be here._ " Kurt is cruel and shrill, eyes narrowed and holding himself in a robotically straight posture.

"Kurt! Justin, _stop_ ," Blaine orders, but they're like dogs in a junkyard straining their chains to get at each other. They don't hear him. He sees the weight of the words land on Justin like a blow, watches as Justin sets his stance to jerk forward towards Kurt -- so he reaches out, snaps a hand down onto Kurt's shoulder but Kurt rolls it right off.

"Sorry, I couldn't understand a word of what you just said, all I heard was screeching. You really don't have a dick, do you?" Justin jabs a finger at Kurt, and Blaine moves in again to separate them, both hands on Kurt's shoulders to drag him back.

"Listen to me, right _now_ \--" Blaine tries again, voice rising, but Kurt cuts right in, sickly-sweet and patronizing.

"Oh, _honey_ , I didn't know you wanted to see it that badly. Would you even know what to do with it?"

Blaine feels heat rush into his face, his fingers clenching into Kurt's shoulders, but Charlie is there now, his jaw held as tight as Blaine's ever seen it, putting more space between the boys.

" _Kurt_ ," Blaine says again, and this time it's an undeniable command. "Go to your room. Now." He jerks Kurt towards the stairs and pushes him off. In his peripheral vision he can see Kurt practically snarling, but he stomps up the stairs with all the sass he can gather.

"Charlie. Keep him here."

Blaine can barely look at Justin, he's so mad. He doesn't know what would be easier to see on Justin's face: relish or penance. So much of it isn't Justin's fault; it's just the fucked up deck of cards that the kid has been forced to play with, and maybe Blaine's not any better than his parents or teachers or foster families that didn't give a damn, but he can't have this, not here. Tension is vibrating all through his body and he knows that he won't be able to contain it here; he needs to leave.

"I'm calling his case worker," he says, with an effort to keep the venom out of his voice but it sounds all the more definitive -- and threatening -- because of it. He turns on his heel and heads for the open door.

\--

When Blaine drives from the dinner venue to his apartment for a final pit-stop, he sees Kurt sitting on his front stoop. He blinks twice; the day is gloomy, the sky cinereous, and Kurt's peacock-bright clothing makes him pop like a hallucination. His legs are spread akimbo as he balances a book and a notepad on his thigh, wrapped up in layers and face reddened by the wind. Blaine's hands slide from the steering wheel and he sucks in an irritated breath. He can't -- he doesn't want to deal with Kurt right now, with the immediate and unnecessary guilt he has over Kurt sitting there in the cold when it was Kurt's choice to begin with and the worry he has about how Kurt will get home.

Blaine's steps lag up the sidewalk, and Kurt calmly starts packing his things into his bag as he approaches. "What are you doing here?" Blaine asks wearily when they meet each other's eyes.

"Helping you." He pushes himself up and brushes himself off. "You're running late. You should have been getting ready half hour an hour ago."

He unlocks his front door and Kurt follows him inside. The cushion of heated air that fills his apartment is _so_ welcome. "Yeah, well, today hasn't exactly gone as planned."

The list of things Blaine had to do throughout the day was tightly packed; there was no room for the chaos of sending Justin away from the house, waiting for his case worker for an excruciating hour, filling out the paperwork, watching Justin carry his luggage out to the car with a grim look on his face. He was a mess trying to set up. He kept forgetting what he was doing in the middle of a task. Now that he's home, all he wants to do is fall over and sleep, but in all honesty he wouldn't be able to even if he had the opportunity.

"I brought the seating chart, and I wrote up a new list. I doubt it helps now, but you have it in case there's something..." Kurt trails off when Blaine goes into the kitchen. "How did the setup go?" he asks, changing tactics.

"Fine. I had to leave before they were finished hanging up all the lights, but the tables are set and the staff seems competent enough to finish everything up."

"Good. I don't want to tempt fate, but --"

"Look, sweetheart," Blaine interrupts, trying to temper his impatience. It isn't Kurt's fault that this day has gone to utter shit. Kurt certainly didn't ask for the bile Justin spewed at him, and later, when Blaine's got his head screwed on straight, they're hashing that out. He's never seen Kurt look as he did today, or sound like that, and it's shaken him up nearly as much as Justin's parting expression did. "I need to get dressed. I know you want to help but right now you can't."

Kurt is silent, the pause loaded. Blaine braces himself for a crack of anger or hurt but it doesn't come. "Take a shower. You should have enough time. It'll help relax you, aside from the obvious hygienic benefits."

Kurt's right, as usual. He has things to worry about and he should rush to make sure he can take Kurt home, but it'll be easier to face that after a shower. He feels uneasy as he strips, piling his clothes onto the bathroom floor and picturing Kurt waiting aimlessly, clothed and collected while Blaine is naked behind the closed door.

\--

He stands at his dresser, eying his collection of cuff links in their plush jewelry box, and tugging one-handed at his black bowtie. It feels far too tight, but short of taking it off he doesn't think it will improve -- Blaine's off-kilter with too many things coalescing at once, and it's starting to get to him in small ways. Putting on a tux is something he's done dozens of times, but right now it feels like he's donning an ugly, ill-fitting costume.

He's still got some trussing up to do to complete the effect. There's a pair of gold cuff links he inherited from his grandfather, square and art-deco style, and he's debating those when he hears Kurt from the hall. This is the first peep he's made since Blaine disappeared for his shower; he must have found some way of entertaining himself. More poking around, if he knows Kurt.

"I called the caterer to make sure he was going to set up on time." Blaine sees him appear in the doorway behind him; they lock gazes in the mirror attached to Blaine's dresser.

"Thanks," he says, going back to his jewelry box, giving up on the tie for now.

There's another pair set with emeralds, and they're nice, but they're a little too haut monde for his personal taste. He skims his fingers over them, considering, and looks up to realize that Kurt is still lingering in his threshold. Blaine picks up the art deco pair and rattles them in his cupped palm. "What's up?"

"The color scheme in here is nice," Kurt remarks. "Very subtle."

It's the first time Kurt has seen Blaine's bedroom. He's familiar with the rest of the place, for the most part (especially, Blaine recalls with a heated squirm, the couch), but the bedroom has been uncharted territory until now. His bed in its cherry wood frame seems suddenly daunting, its presence suggestive. He's been in a bed with Kurt before, but never _his_ bed. What he needs to be thinking about right now isn't Kurt in his bed, touching Kurt's bare skin in his bed -- and Blaine is still basing that mental image on conjecture rather than fact.

Kurt's seen so much more of him than he has of Kurt.

"Glad it meets your approval," Blaine says, fastening the first link.

Kurt finally crosses the threshold and circles him in slow appraisal. Blaine's only half ready in socks with his shirt untucked, his hair the only part of him that's done. He made more than his usual effort with it tonight, shaping the waves rather than just gelling everything flat.

"Please tell me you're joking," Kurt says with a disdainful flick of his finger to Blaine's bowtie.

"What?"

"I can't in good conscience let you out with it like that," he says, reaching to undo it.

Blaine side steps him and frowns. "I know how to tie a tie. I've been doing it since before you were born."

"Clearly practice has not made perfect," Kurt snaps, unimpressed with him, and deliberately gets back into Blaine's space to deftly twist the fabric through his fingers. He sweeps his hands over Blaine's shoulders when he's done. "There." He stays close, unfazed with the irritation Blaine knows he's radiating but doesn't care enough about to reign in. "Are you wearing cologne?"

"I guess." There are bottles of it on his dresser, mostly unused; wearing it at work seems silly, and some people have allergies, so he decided a long time ago to stop unless it was for special occasions. He went on a date eight months ago, which was the last time he tapped into something other than aftershave.

Kurt turns and studies the various bottles, a finger to his lips. "Half of the men there will be wearing Polo or Drakkar Noir," he says, pulling a face. "Stick with something simple but sophisticated." He grabs a bottle of Armani Code that Blaine has only used once; he thinks his mom bought it for him a few Christmases ago. "This should work." He pulls off the lid and, to Blaine's surprise, spritzes it onto his own wrist. "It isn't Burberry," he says, casually sliding his cologne-damp wrist along Blaine's neck, up to the pulse point on his jaw. "But it'll do."

"What are you doing?" Blaine asks, swallowing hard, senses invaded by the smell of Armani imbued in Kurt's touch.

"You don't want to _drown_ in scent."

Kurt seems to be contemplating a second spritz when Blaine snakes his hands around his waist and tugs him closer. "Don't forget to tuck in your shirt," he mumbles to cover his surprise, but then he's right there with him in a second, returning the embrace, though Blaine notes he's being careful not to cause any wrinkles.

"Thank you for helping me," Blaine says, nudging Kurt's cheek with his nose so he'll turn his face a little. He kisses by his ear, and when Kurt murmurs a little noise, he nuzzles there.

"Somebody's suddenly in a better mood," Kurt says, mild despite the way he arches into Blaine's hands.

" _Somebody_ had to come in here and distract me with their magic hands."

"What?" Kurt half-laughs, half-sputters, but Blaine cuts off whatever else he was going to say with his mouth.

Kurt's exactly a distraction, and a good one, pliable and appealing enough to make him think about putting off everything he has to do until the last possible minute, or just not doing it at all. Who cares if the tables are set up wrong, or if people get there too early and no one is there to greet them? He has Kurt four feet from his bed, and they smell of the same heady cologne; something about that is doing it for him right now.

"This is a bad idea," Kurt mutters, but he's drawing his thumb over the side of Blaine's face, stopping short of his styled hair.

"We've got, like, ten minutes before I have to go," Blaine says, and he doesn't have to be careful of _Kurt's_ hair, so he slides a hand up into it and kisses the apple of his cheek for no reason whatsoever, other than his desire to feel the warmth of it under his lips.

"You're half dressed."

"I am not."

Blaine does some things naturally when he kisses someone. Most people do. The longer he does it, the less he monitors his actions, and previously he's been fairly careful about keeping a metaphorical eye on himself with Kurt. Blaine was Kurt's first kiss; he doesn't have a frame of reference for how this stuff works, and Blaine tells himself over and over that he needs to be careful, to be patient, but Kurt has now explicitly taught him that careful isn't enough.

He slides his hands down to Kurt's ass and finally squeezes the handful he's been shamefully pining for. It's just such a _nice_ ass, and it feels even better than he expected (and his expectations were pretty high). Any holdover of concern Blaine had over Kurt's reaction is dashed when Kurt moans and drops his head to Blaine's shoulder.

Blaine cups him, stopping when he reaches the top of Kurt's thighs. His fingers knead of their own accord, learning the shape of him. "Wow," Blaine says, marvelling. "Your ass is really firm."

"Blaine!" Kurt sounds scandalized, and he writhes uncomfortably in Blaine's arms.

"What?" Blaine asks. "It is."

"You can't just _say_ things like that."

"Really?" Blaine says, dropping his hands -- he has to stop touching if he ever wants to leave the room -- and he leans back so Kurt has to lift his head up. He's splotchy and trying valiantly to maintain a pokerface. "I have a hard time believing you're the same boy who ambushed me with a handjob the other day."

" _Blaine_ ," Kurt whines his name. "We really, really don't have to talk about those _experiences_. They are only for the bedroom."

"And the couch?" Blaine tips his head, not even trying to hide the smile.

Kurt groans miserably.

"And-- oh, _shit_ , I need to leave _now_." The hands of his wristwatch are much farther left than they should be -- he pats down his pockets, making sure he has his keys and his phone and maybe his sanity, but he hasn't seen that in a few days. Or his shoes. Where are his shoes? "I-- You-- " Blaine fumbles, visibly, caught halfway out the door.

"Blaine," Kurt says for the third time. "I'll walk. I walked here, I can walk back. I found your spare key, too, so I'll lock the door behind me. Get your other cufflink, it's on the dresser, your shoes are right here, and your jacket is hanging up by the front door. Go."

Blaine stares at him blankly, then snaps into action. "Okay, okay. Cufflink, cufflink on the dresser, shoes, jacket by the door. Kurt, _thank you_ ," he says as he disappears towards the front door, only to pop his head back in with a rakish smile. "Oh -- and the washing machine, too."

Kurt's indignant expression is the last thing he sees before he closes the door.


	6. Chapter 6

"Stop looking at me like that," Kurt says as he unlaces his shoes in the entryway. "I tell them I'm at Mercedes'. Or the mall. Or practicing with Glee. My social life is just brimming with possibility." 

Kurt pauses, taking in the television set to ESPN and the Blaine-shaped indent in the couch. "Unlike yours."

Blaine drags a shaky hand through his hair. "Yeah, uh. Sorry. I'm not really exciting company."

Kurt's already on the way to the couch when he shakes his head dismissively. "I don't come here expecting book club discussions and tea parties." He sets his backpack down at his feet and carefully slides out a fashion magazine. 

"Then... what _do_ you come here for?" Blaine has to ask, hovering around the back of the couch. 

"To let you bask in the pleasure of my company." Kurt looks up at him and offers a too-casual shrug, barely holding back a smile. "Or maybe because I like to bask in yours. Now, sit down and tell me all about the charity dinner while I flip through this. We haven't really seen you since it happened -- have you been hiding in here? It wasn't that bad, was it?"

"It wasn't bad at all," Blaine admits, sitting down a respectable cushion away from Kurt. "It was just exhausting."

"Hm, I'll bet."

"We made more than I thought we would, which is the biggest relief." Blaine does not think about the check of Wes' that topped the gross into something more than satisfactory. "I won't be planning any bake sales for a while." 

Of all of the moments from the dinner, Blaine thinks he'll remember Mia pressuring Ted Saunders into writing a bigger check the most. When he's _dying_ , there will be a second where he recalls the disapproving look on her face and the "come on, that's just stingy" with a fond smile and embarrassment so acute it makes him want to twitch. He kind of wants to tell Kurt, but he can't quite laugh the mortification away yet. The bright side is that her bullying worked.

"I'm glad. You were so stressed out." He gives Blaine an up and down glance, taking in his frizzy hair and track pants that are a size too big. "You still are. Have you slept?"

"Yeah. A bit. I was thinking of taking a nap before you showed up."

"That's a good idea. You should go lie down. It'll give your eyes a chance for the puffiness to fade --" how perfectly blunt of him "-- and for me to make dinner."

He reaches over to Blaine's coffee table and stabs the power button on his remote with finality. Apparently Kurt isn't a fan of ESPN.

"You're making dinner?" Blaine asks. "I don't know what I have in my fridge--"

"I've got it covered. Go to sleep and leave me alone."

Blaine stands and stretches until his spine cracks. Kurt eyes the strip of skin that's bared by Blaine's shirt rising, but he goes back to his magazine and Blaine pads down the hall to his room. He wants to think of something coy to toss over his shoulder, something to make Kurt follow him, but he wants sleep, and if Kurt's there next to him he'll only be able to trace his hands over his features, taste him. And Blaine knows Kurt's pissed when he's derailed from any of his plans.

Later, he thinks, sinking between his sheets.

\--

His body wakes up of its own accord a few hours later. Blaine rolls over and blinks at the clock by his bedside until the neon blur comes into focus; six-thirty, and he went to sleep around three. Kurt probably should have woken him by now. He must be bored out of his skull.

He throws off the covers and tries to throw off the lingering sleepiness that's dogging him in turn. It's dark in his room, fall sunsets being what they are, and Blaine was feeling pretty cozy until he realized he had to get up. 

When he opens the door and walks down the dark hallway toward the inviting light filling the rest of the apartment, he takes a moment to process the changes to his kitchen -- and the sock-clad boy who orchestrated it all.

Kurt has found his best dinnerware, a set of classic ceramic plates that have unsurprisingly spent the last few years collecting dust in his cabinets. Full sets of silverware are lined up next to each plate, every utensil in its place from the salad fork to the soup spoon. Cloth napkins (utility _and_ presence, Blaine remembers from Kurt's lesson when they planned the charity dinner) are folded on top of the plates, dainty and waiting.

Kurt himself is standing at the stove, stirring something. He hasn't noticed Blaine yet, and Blaine gets to watch him unselfconsciously as he picks up a serving spoon and tastes something from the pan. From the brief, obscured glance he gets, it looks light and creamy, but he can't wager a real guess as to what it could be.

Blaine can see the careful effort Kurt has put into the set-up, from the symmetry of the silverware to the chef-ready presentation of the meal, but somehow he knows that Kurt has held back, and that that's part of the show, too. The napkins aren't molded into swans, which he knows Kurt is actually capable of doing, and even though he's lit a handful of vanilla candles, he's kept the lights on and the stereo tuned to top 40 radio. It's warm, relaxed, and intimate -- exactly what Blaine didn't know he wanted, and far more than he'd imagined. 

"Kurt..." Blaine starts, because he doesn't know what to say. 

Kurt turns, gives him a quick smile. "How was your nap?" he asks, like he hasn't taken over Blaine's kitchen and his dining table and all the spare thoughts in his head. 

"It was… good." Blaine adds, awkwardly, "thank you." Out of all the things he could thank Kurt for, he's not sure which one he's acknowledging.

Kurt shrugs it off, flitting from stove to counter as he puts the last of it together. He's dressed down, just fitted jeans and a t-shirt with his hair a little tousled. The vest he had on earlier is folded neatly across the back of the couch, presumably to save it from cooking mishaps. Kurt's there, slotted into place in Blaine's kitchen, comfortable and attainable, an arm's length away. 

"Take a seat," Kurt says as he sets a bottle of red wine down in the middle of the table. "It's ready."

Blaine puts his urge to touch Kurt on hold and sits, incredulous anew at the table in front of him. He unfolds his napkin and drapes it across his lap. His eyes hold on Kurt as he bustles around, bringing platters and bowls from the kitchen, haricot and risotto (of course it's risotto instead of mashed potatoes or something equally pedestrian) and absolutely none of that was in Blaine's fridge. Certainly not the lamb. 

He wants to ask what Kurt spent on it, but that's rude and mood-shattering. It's painful to picture Kurt, who skimps on the things he loves, shirts and dress shoes and CDs, buying food for the two of them. He shakes his head and stares up at Kurt carefully pouring two glasses of wine. 

"What?" he asks when he notices Blaine staring, and he can see a split-second of nervousness cross his face.

"Nothing," Blaine says, smiling at him for reassurance. "It looks great."

"I forgot to ask if you like lamb."

"I do. Sit down and stop fussing and have dinner with me."

Kurt shoots him a look but drops down into his own chair. Blaine's dining room table only seats four, so they're close, but as Kurt intently serves himself a spoonful of risotto, he wishes they were closer.

\--

Kurt's only had the one glass of wine -- which might not be kosher, but Blaine's parents started letting him have a glass on Christmas or Thanksgiving when he was thirteen, and by the time he was eighteen it was on more than special occasions. Kurt's seventeen and giggly, sweet and carefree with the wine adding a flush to his face. Blaine leans back in his chair, hands folded behind his head, just taking him in. 

"You're stunning," he says. 

Kurt drops his elbows onto the table, a self-conscious glitch in his impeccable manners, and shakes his head. "You know you can let people do nice things for you without showering them in flattery afterwards, right?"

Blaine makes a noise of protest, but instead of trying to vocalize it he pushes his empty plate out of range and holds his hand out for Kurt. "C'mere." 

Kurt props his chin on his hand. "Where?"

His finger crooks in. "Here." 

Kurt slides out from his chair, shuffling a few steps over until his knees bump into Blaine's. Blaine lets his palms settle right below the curve of Kurt's ass, curling around the back of his thighs to hold him in place. 

Kurt slips an arm around his shoulders, and Blaine feels the tip of his thumb brush along the shell of his ear. "Here?" 

"No. Here." There's not any space to separate them but Blaine presses against his thighs to edge him in closer. 

Kurt starts to slide a knee up on the side of the chair, so he guides Kurt all the way into his lap, locking his arms around Kurt's waist, warm and possessive. Blaine hears a tiny, barely-there laugh as Kurt lets his weight settle fully onto Blaine's thighs, punctuated by close-mouthed kisses fluttered along the outer curve of Blaine's ear.

" _Here_ ," Kurt says with some finality. 

He hums an affirmative, dragging his lips along Kurt's collar and ending with a kiss pressed to the middle of his chest. "Here."

Somehow his fingers start tucking themselves into Kurt's back pockets, and it's all he can do not to squeeze and press up into him, especially as Kurt starts to leave a trail of tiny pecks along the line of his jaw.

"Admit it," Kurt murmurs, sounding rather self-satisfied as he takes the time to explore Blaine's neck. "You needed that nap, that dinner, _and_ me."

Blaine chuckles, feels the way his body shakes into Kurt's. "I admit it. Without you I'd have sent out charity invitations for the wrong day, seated everyone on upside-down buckets, worn a crooked bowtie to the dinner, then ended up alone tonight with Rafael Nadal on ESPN, eating a bag of chips."

"With puffy eyes," Kurt reminds him. He tips Blaine's chin up with his knuckles, giving him a once-over. "Mm. They look better now."

Blaine's tempted to roll his eyes, but that move belongs to Kurt. He's slowly dragging his hands out of Kurt's back pockets because he needs to slide them under his shirt, notch them up his spine and let his nails graze over his unmarked skin. Kurt keeps shifting a little, back-and-forth in his lap -- ticklish, maybe? -- as his hands go higher and Blaine has to swallow down a groan. He rests his forehead against Kurt's chest, and when he lets his fingertips press into Kurt's back, it's only the slightest reprieve and the slowest sieve.

"Bed?" Kurt inhales, hopeful and scared and needy, all at once. 

Blaine takes in a shuddering breath, feeling Kurt's t-shirt soft under his eyelids, the slope of his nose aligned with the side of Kurt's ribs. 

"Yeah," he says as soon as he dares to exhale. "Let's go."

\--

"Wait, hang on..." Blaine lifts up from his station on the underside of Kurt's jaw, wiping away the spit that still clings to his lips with the back of his hand.

Kurt's hands had been underneath Blaine's shirt, mapping thumb-breadth by thumb-breadth across his chest, but then they'd slipped out and went somewhere that was _not_ on Blaine's body and... was that the sound of a zipper?

"What're you doing?" Blaine asks, sounding a little more rough and turned-on than he expected.

"Helping this along," Kurt replies matter-of-factly, though it doesn't escape Blaine's notice that his voice is pitched higher than usual.

"With..." Blaine pulls back just enough to actually _see_ , and he swears he can feel his stomach invert itself when he realizes that Kurt is unbuttoning his own pants, wiggling his hips to help ease the unnecessarily tight denim down.

Kurt is occupied with _taking his pants off_ , and doesn't stop squirming around even when he answers. "I have to be back at the house in two and a half hours," he says, and Blaine's staring at his hipbones as they're bared, too-tight friction catching his boxerbriefs and dragging them down along for the ride. Kurt stops and awkwardly holds one hand over his underwear to keep them in place while he uses the other to keep peeling off his jeans. "You took a three-hour nap and dinner ran longer than I'd planned."

Blaine is close to asking how long Kurt seriously thinks this -- whatever this is -- is going to last in their window of time, but Kurt's pants have cleared his thighs and his t-shirt is riding up his stomach as he moves around. He doesn't even have the wherewithal to blink.

"Well?" Kurt's kicking his pants off his ankles, looking up at Blaine. 

He can't help it; his eyes do a rush job of looking at the new parts of Kurt that have been bared to him, and zero in on the way he can tell Kurt is half hard. "Yes?" Blaine answers, and fuck, he is way too old for his voice to break. 

"You too," Kurt nods at him, and like he doesn't expect Blaine to be able to do it on his own, his fingers are circling underneath Blaine's waistband to tug his trackpants down, too. Blaine shivers as Kurt's blunt nails skim over the thin skin at his abdomen; he feels the resonant spike of lust all the way down his legs as he kicks his pants down.

They've been in this position before, sort of, and it spares them from a potentially precarious moment when Kurt realizes that Blaine's gone without anything under his pants. He watches Kurt's mouth part, his torso suddenly tense with focus, and this isn't the decisive onslaught of that time on the couch. This time is thoughtful, experimental; Kurt drags a light, curious finger up the shaft of his dick and follows it up with a more sure press from the heel of his hand. 

But it _is_ like the time on the couch after all, because Kurt's hand is on him, and while Kurt's jeans might be on the floor, he is still wearing miles more than Blaine is. And it feels really, really dumb to be mostly naked instead of fully naked, so he takes care of that by pulling his shirt up and over his head, launching it toward his bathroom where the hamper is.

Kurt makes a contented little noise and pets his way across Blaine's chest, brushing his lips in the wake of his hands as he finally has a chance to see what he's only felt. Blaine lets his head fall back on the pillow with a sigh, and when he opens his eyes up again all he sees is the meticulously crafted pouf of his swept up bangs and the pane of his back from the peek Kurt's dropped shoulder gives him. Blaine tries not to be obvious when he cranes to get a better look, but every time Blaine's gotten to see the back of him, he's been wearing layer upon layer of clothing. Kurt's black boxerbriefs are thin, molded to his shape, and favor the slope of his ass. He nearly makes a really fucked up sound; apparently those jeans Kurt's fond of painting himself into every day are _unflattering_.

Kurt pokes his head up, looking for reassurance after Blaine basically checked out on him, so Blaine cups a hand over his cheek and coaxes him in, dropping a kiss to the bridge of his nose. He reaches for the hem of Kurt's shirt to tug it on over his head, but Kurt jolts back with a disapproving, high-pitched sound.

Blaine freezes. "I'm sor--"

"No, stop, you're just doing it out of order." Kurt's up on his hands and knees, contorting to reach his feet. "Socks first," he explains as he tugs them up from his toes, and when they're off he lets them drop off the side the bed, "then shirt. We're not cavemen." 

Blaine chokes out a laugh, because god, this kid is going to make his blood pressure skyrocket before he even gets to thirty-seven. "Kurt," Blaine starts, setting his hand onto his shoulder, "I need you to write me a handbook of all the rules. Like, a user manual." 

Kurt rolls his eyes and moves Blaine's hand back to the hem of his shirt. "It's not that complicated."

He waits to see if there's another step he's missed, but Kurt just returns the look, waiting in turn. Blaine hikes his shirt up a few inches, and Kurt raises his arms above his head, the way Blaine used to when his mom helped him get dressed as a kid. His shirt comes off with one intent pull, and Blaine is in a hurry to not deal with clothes anymore, so he tosses it across the room with a flick of his wrist.

Kurt settles back onto his side, and Blaine almost startles like a fool when he realizes what it is he's looking at. Somewhere in his head he forgot the part where taking off Kurt's shirt would mean he'd see Kurt _shirtless_ , his arms loosely draped to rest over his stomach, shoulders subtly curled forward. He's so close to what the flashes of Blaine's prurient imagination provided; pale, the black of his underwear such a contrast that they seem to divide one part of him from another, and he's close to hairless on his chest, but not as raw-boned as Blaine might have expected. 

"Oh, sweetheart," Blaine says through a tight throat.

Kurt's shoulders hunch in a little more, and he finds a sudden fascination in the stitching on Blaine's comforter. Blaine strokes a finger down the soft hair at the nape of his neck, wanting Kurt to meet his eyes again. Kurt's always been a study of contradictions -- sweet and sour, quiet and loud, a weary adult in a teenage boy's body. Sometimes Blaine can glance at his face and read novels, but he can shut down, too, and when he does he's as accessible to Blaine as a dial tone. 

"You're..." He exhales; he doesn't even know how to describe to Kurt what he sees when he looks at him. He threads his fingers into Kurt's hair, nudging his head up as gently as he can -- and it's there in Kurt's eyes, not what he had anticipated but at least what he had wondered would surface, if he ever let himself picture this. Blaine doesn't remember the first time he shed his clothes to be this close and exposed to someone else as well as he wishes he could, but certainly his heart had raced and his confidence had knotted up in his stomach. It had helped to recognize that he and the guy he'd been with were balancing on the same ledge -- this was new for both of them, and if they messed up or got something wrong, they were in it together. 

With Kurt, the ground is uneven, and Kurt's by himself on the ledge. Blaine is the first person in his life to make him feel attractive or wanted. He's never been another man's boyfriend or lover, and right now he's improvising the role without really knowing the lines.

Blaine wants to be the one who teaches him.

"I love your neck." Blaine trails his knuckles down to Kurt's shoulder, rubbing briefly over the hollow of his clavicle. 

Kurt flashes an expression Blaine can't nail down, but he hasn't drawn away at the touch, so he keeps a steady eye on Kurt's reaction as he continues the drag down to the top of his chest. "Granted, this is the most I've _seen_ of it, so I'm a little overwhelmed," he goes on, keeping his voice casual. 

The huff of Kurt's startled breath as Blaine's finger catches over his nipple suspends between them for a moment. He nearly stalls, but Kurt only swallows and closes his eyes for a second. Blaine moves on, tracing the ridges of his ribs, taut skin stretched over them. 

"You can stop me if I do something, you know, you don't like," Blaine offers, hoping Kurt will take it to heart.

Kurt just shakes his head. Blaine can't tell if he means it or if his patented stubbornness is winning out. Not exactly reassured, Blaine spreads his palm over Kurt's stomach, feeling the tense rise and fall of his breath under his hand. When Kurt doesn't so much as blink, Blaine makes another wager and presses his lips to Kurt's neck. He meant what he said; it's lovely, and up until tonight, it was the most he'd gotten to see and touch of Kurt. It's a familiar thing for both of them, and he gets the feeling that they need familiar to start with. 

He skims his teeth over Kurt's skin and smiles to himself at the heavy exhale he gets in return. Kurt drops the pads of his fingertips to Blaine's shoulder, unconsciously using the barest pressure to encourage him. Blaine feels flush as he dips back into the curve of Kurt's neck, following the line of it down to his throat. This close he can feel the thrum of blood under Kurt's skin and the increasing labor of his breath. When he kisses wet over his collarbone, Kurt shifts against his sheets.

Okay. That's good. Blaine doesn't feel so much like he's grasping at straws. He does it again, and Kurt's reaction isn't as obvious, just a deeper inhalation, but he clearly likes it. He trails kisses lower and lower and lower until he finds himself bracing his hands on Kurt's chest and kissing to the left of his nipple. They're already pulled small and tight, darker points of color in his fair chest. There's still no negative reaction from Kurt, but just to be sure he raises his eyes and keeps them trained on Kurt as he slowly pulls the flat of his tongue across it. 

Kurt actually makes a noise, a -- there's no other word for it -- peep of surprise. His fingers tighten on Blaine's shoulder, but Kurt doesn't pull him closer or push him away, and when Blaine seals his mouth and sucks, his fingers dig in even harder. It sends a pang of _holyshit_ through Blaine, this sensation of playing with it, the knot of Kurt's nipple under his tongue as he worries it, and then he just _throbs_ as Kurt starts to move around again.

"Good?" he asks, pulling back to check, distracted by the barely-there shine to Kurt's nipple, the proof of what he's done. Kurt doesn't answer him, so he forces himself to stop staring and look up.

Kurt looks shell-shocked, which raises his concern for a moment, but he gives a quick nod and pulls his lower lip between his teeth.

"Okay if I keep going?"

Kurt nods again, and Blaine settles in this time, loosening the tension in his shoulders and pushing his hips into the mattress to take the edge off, confident he's probably not going to fuck it up. He presses his open mouth over Kurt's other nipple, flickering the tip of his tongue.

This time, Kurt's hips unmistakably jolt. Blaine pushes aside his own reaction to that and goes for broke, sucking and licking and scraping with his teeth until Kurt's bare calves are restless against the sheets, his knees drawing up, feet planted flat on the mattress. 

He starts a row of kisses down Kurt's sternum, happy when fingers tangle in his hair, happier still that it isn't stiff with gel. Kurt's body is so responsive, and he doesn't know why this is novel to him. Kurt's always so expressive around him, the dam of his constant reserve in front of others leaking for once, and the part of Blaine that went insane one random night and kissed him for the first time keeps reminding him that Kurt's never been touched, that his reactions are unschooled and genuine. 

"You can stop me," Blaine says, slurred into the skin above Kurt's navel. "Jesus, you're smooth." He skirts his fingertips above Kurt's waistband, barely feeling fuzz there.

Kurt makes a pained noise -- Blaine should have known he would be sensitive about that. Kurt's very much solid in himself and most things slide off of his back remarkably, but Blaine has seen him shut down or get vicious if someone calls him a girl. He's boyish, is the thing; his stomach is soft and flat, showing resistance of muscle only when Blaine presses hard with his hands and mouth. The first time Blaine came when he really thought about how Kurt looks, and what it means that Blaine _likes_ how soft and slim and pure he is, he freaked out a little.

"You're fucking gorgeous," Blaine says unevenly, fingers itching to slide under Kurt's waistband. He's fully hard, and all it would take to really see is sliding down a few more inches. He doesn't know how much he bothered Kurt with his comment, and short of putting the whole thing on hold so they can sort it out, he can't do much to fix it except be cautious.

"Blaine," Kurt says, quiet but needy, hands petting through his hair like _Blaine_ is the one who needs soothing.

"You can stop me," he says again stupidly, helplessly, squeezing Kurt's waist. He watches his hands pull at Kurt's underwear until, fuck fuck fuck, he can see the hair there, coarse and a little lighter than the hair on Kurt's head.

His cock is thick, which he already knew, but not pale like he'd pictured, blood-flushed and so close to Blaine's mouth. He has to remind his hands to keep moving, remind himself to sit back so he can work Kurt's boxerbriefs down his thighs, his calves, his ankles. 

Oral sex was a really big deal for him, when he was Kurt's age. He remembers the slight edge of panic that lurked in his mind when he thought about it, whether he'd like to do it, or if he'd be any good at it. 

He's pretty good at it. He mouths over the head of Kurt's cock, inhaling when the taste of him hits his tongue, the little bit of slick there. He flutters his tongue against the crown, getting him wet, getting him used to it. It's difficult to go slowly; what he wants is hard and fast, Kurt filling his senses, pulling every noise he can get from him. He brings his hands to Kurt's hips and tilts him up, holds him there, digging his fingers into the fleshy area above his ass, and being that close to something else it drives him crazy to think about, to being able to do the things he wants to, makes him light-headed. 

He can show Kurt what it's like, the slow suction as he slides his lips down, up. Kurt makes a sound that has Blaine rubbing up against the mattress, and he can't draw it out, not when he's able to do this and he knows that it's good for Kurt too. He takes Kurt in until he hits the back of his throat, spasming for a second until his body remembers that he knows exactly how to do this, even if it's been a while since he's needed to. 

"Oh, oh my God," Kurt whispers. Blaine can feel him shaking.

Blaine sucks him with single trick he's learned and every technique he's shamelessly ripped off, trying to overload him, make him feel better than he ever has. He begrudgingly moves one of his hands out from under Kurt and wraps it around the base, pulling off to get a few deep breaths. Blaine keeps stroking him, feeling the way he fills out Blaine's palm, slippery, precome beading at the tip, and looks up to see how he's doing.

Kurt's head is tilted back on the pillows and he's staring wide-eyed up at the ceiling, breathing harsh and irregular. He folds his lips over a whimper when Blaine twists his fingers around the head the way he likes, and Blaine needs to really look at him, needs to read his face.

"Hey," he says, slowing. "Look at me?"

Kurt shakes his head frantically, his right hand knotting a fistful of Blaine's navy sheets. Blaine squeezes his hand, though he's not sure if that's really going to be encouragement. When that provokes another choked off noise, Blaine speeds up a little.

He's a _wreck_ , panting, starting to squirm again, and Blaine did that.

"God, you're so good. Let me take care of you." He goes to take him all the way to his throat again, eyes closing, and it barely registers when it happens; Kurt whines and then splashes of wet hit his lips, his chin, even one streak up to the apple of his cheek. 

He made Kurt _come_ , just from that. Kurt came all over his face. Blaine groans and licks the salt of him from his lips, and he's so turned on that when he opens his eyes Kurt's blurry in front of him.

Kurt just lies there, shuddering, and Blaine wants to crawl on top of him and press him down with his weight into the mattress, rub his cock right up against him, but he imagines he's pretty sensitive right now. He lets him lie there for a while, stroking his hips, but all of a sudden, Kurt starts.

"Ohmygod," Kurt says, sitting up, his hands flighting like birds. He starts to slide up the bed, knocking his knees into a suddenly confused and barely functional Blaine. "I am so -- this is so --"

"Kurt?" Blaine asks, sitting up too. 

Kurt gets a look at his face and recoils. "That was disgusting, I'm sorry, I didn't mean --" His voice starts rising, and Blaine hurriedly catches his wrists.

"Don't be sorry," he says. "God, Kurt. I liked it."

"What?" Kurt asks, clearly astonished and not a little dubious, and Blaine can see he's trying to make himself look at Blaine's face again, but he's wincing every time he tries.

"You got me so close, just from that."

Kurt's eyes widen and his hands twitch in Blaine's grasp. He lets him go. "I," he bites his lip briefly. "If you could... I want to -- could you wash your face?" he asks miserably.

Even though Blaine was definitely not kidding about being close, at freaking all, he can't help laughing. He laughs all the way to the bathroom, rolling his shoulders and trying to ignore how unsexy he must seem right now, what with his awkward erection and Kurt's horror at -- well. He grabs a washrag from its hook and wets it with warm water in the sink. He gets a good look at himself in his mirror; flushed and positively debauched, still a little turned on by the streaks across his face. It only takes a few drags of the cloth before all traces of Kurt are gone, and he smiles ruefully at his reflection while he rinses it again. 

When he comes out, Kurt has collected himself somewhat, Blaine's sheets drawn over his lap. 

"Hi," Blaine says, resisting the urge to hold his hands over his erection, which is still stubbornly hard.

Kurt plucks folds of sheets between his fingers and doesn't look up at Blaine as he does so. "I'm sorry," he mumbles.

"Stop apologizing," Blaine says, climbing onto the bed, chancing his luck by lying next to Kurt, but the only parts of them that are touching are through the sheet. His fingers reach out of their own accord and rest lightly on Kurt's knee under the covers. He gives it a squeeze. "I know you're embarrassed but it was fine."

Kurt scoffs, shaking his head, the cleft of his chin especially prominent with how tensely he's holding his face, his entire body. "It is decidedly _not_ fine. It was rude and -- and gross and I don't want to think about what it did to your skin."

"You may have a point there," Blaine says wryly, trying to get Kurt to unwind. Kurt just shakes his head again, so obviously that didn't work. "Can you look at me?"

Kurt does, and Blaine thinks it's the first time they've made eye contact in a while. Blaine smooths his hand up and down Kurt's knee and shin, the silky texture overlaying Kurt's leg, the shinbone hard underneath, is an appealing contrast.

He shuffles around on the bed some, feeling starkly naked next to Kurt with his protective sheet, which he is pulling up until it rests just under his nipples. Blaine gets close enough for them to kiss but doesn't go there yet.

"It was your first time, so you don't..." He sighs, not unhappily. "It's not rude. I mean, generally there's some sort of warning but, God so not a problem for me. I didn't mind it _at all_ ," he says pointedly, watching Kurt's mouth slacken in this mixture of bewilderment and dawning understanding. "I liked it." The way he's resting on his side, propped up on his shoulder, is getting uncomfortable, but he doesn't notice it at all when he remembers how it happened and looks at Kurt's full, parted mouth. He moves his hand to it and ghosts his fingers across the tender skin. "I liked the way you taste."

Kurt looks even more bewildered then, but when he gets Blaine's so-not-about-kissing meaning, he blanches and looks wary. Blaine drops his hand. "I have a hard time... I thought that sort of thing was just something for _those movies_ ," he says with a gravity like he's referring to snuff films.

Blaine takes a moment to consider Kurt watching porn, trying to imagine what _those movies_ could have possibly been. God knows what the internet led him to. "It's not. It's really not."

"Oh." Kurt looks less freaked out now. Blaine slides a hand up his thigh, not trying to be sexual about it, just intimate or reassuring, but right now -- though he's thankfully not as single-mindedly hard as he was a few minutes ago -- it feels electric to him. "I suppose," he allows.

Blaine smiles, finally tilting his head up for a kiss that Kurt doesn't hesitate to grant him. He lets Kurt direct it, calm now that the adrenalin is wearing off and his body can slip into the happy, sleepy buzz that comes after sex. 

Kurt leans to get a better angle to the kiss, and the sheet falls back to his hips, giving Blaine an expanse of skin to touch again. He rests his palm on Kurt's stomach, just feeling, hips shifting closer to the warm body next to him, and Kurt makes an urgent noise against his mouth.

"Blaine!" 

"What?"

"You should have said something!" His eyes are narrowed, and he draws his knees up to give him leverage as he scoots up the bed. 

"About what?" Blaine asks, wondering why warm and skin is being taken away from him.

"You didn't," he says, twitching his fingers in a vague gesture. 

Oh. That. He's really naked and yeah, pretty much. "It's not like there's etiquette for this sort of thing, don't worry about it."

Kurt gives him an intensely unimpressed look. "Of course there is. I'm not about to... Come here."

Not entirely sure what Kurt wants to him to do, or where 'here' is, Blaine sits up, his shoulder nearly singing with relief, and to his surprise, Kurt pulls him in so Blaine's erection is pressed against his side. 

"Like this," Kurt says, moving around again once he realizes the position he was going for didn't work out the way he wanted it to. "On top of me." He holds Blaine back for a second while he peels back the sheet, but his movement has a hitch. "Unless you don't want that."

"No," Blaine says, breathless at the way the sheets slide against his cock in a brief moment of contact. "This is great." The next breath he takes splits off into a groan as Kurt, naked again, fits them together so Blaine's rubbing right against his hip, close to his stomach. "Fuck. Aren't you sensitive?"

"I'm fine," Kurt says softly, flattening his palms against Blaine's back, urging him down. "I want you to."

"Shit," Blaine says, bracing himself above Kurt and giving an experimental roll of his hips. He doesn't mean to keep cursing like an idiot -- Kurt doesn't swear much, Blaine doesn't know if that means he doesn't like it -- but every sensation he gets when they're like this short-circuits his brain. 

Their thighs slide together as Blaine moves, and it isn't the most comfortable he's ever been; they could really use some lube, and he's hyper-aware of the fact that this is all about him, Kurt kissing his jaw and nipping his lower lip and staring up at him with curious, attentive eyes. He grinds down, hiccupping on a moan as Kurt's hands slide lower down his body and settle above his ass, pressing insistently.

He picks up speed, letting the fact that there's so little slick between them make it better, dirtier, licking unsteadily into Kurt's mouth, too much teeth. He was so close for so long, their detour didn't do much to kill how badly he wanted this, and by the time Kurt's breath starts picking up, Blaine's almost there.

"I'm going to, baby, I'm close, fuck," Blaine says, eloquent as ever. Kurt whines and clenches his fingers into the meat of Blaine's ass.

Now the mattress is squeaking, Blaine jostling Kurt with every thrust. The sound and the movement is so close to something _else_ , and it's that thought that gets him there, smashing them into a kiss as he comes all over the two of them, Kurt's soft little stomach and sharp hip, spreading sticky wetness all over himself too.

Kurt _mmphs_ when Blaine slumps on top of him, breathing hard, but he cradles him, bracketing Blaine's lower body snugly with his knees.

"Blaine," he whispers, arms clenching around him in a hug, sweeping his hand up and down Blaine's damp back, gentle and wonderful.

He kisses the nearest part of him he can, which turns out to be his collarbone, and leaves his mouth there, open and messy, as he tries to come back to himself.

He is eventually able to raise his head and move himself to Kurt's side so he isn't slowly suffocating him. One of Kurt's hands stays on his back to keep him anchored and close, but the other pushes back Blaine's slightly sweaty hair. He trails a finger down Blaine's cheek and smiles at him from the pillow that's completely messing up his already messy hair, and Blaine shudders a last truly overwhelmed breath.

"Good?" Kurt asks, fussily pulling at some of his curls. 

"No, dummy, it was terrible." He kisses the ball of Kurt's shoulder and closes his eyes when Kurt threads his fingers through his hair. "That feels awesome."

"Hmm." Kurt scritches at his scalp and Blaine knows he has to get up and wipe them off at the very least but he's so comfortable and happy, Kurt makes him so _happy_. Plus he's really great with his hands. Blaine usually hates people playing with his hair. They tug on his curls like it's the most novel thing they've ever seen, and ruffle it like he's a kid. It frizzes so easily, so it's just best to remove temptation altogether with the gel. If Kurt wants to slide his fingertips through it, gentle and shiver-inducing, he can do it whenever he likes. "We should... clean up."

"I have some baby wipes. Or you could shower."

"My hair's a mess," Kurt says mournfully. "I just know it is. But I don't want to shower yet. Tired."

"Me too. I'll go get the wipes."

He doesn't move, letting Kurt lull his eyes closed with more touch. 

"Blaine, it's drying, it's so gross."

"Right. Sorry." He gets up in a swift push of what's left of his energy, going into the bathroom and poking around to figure out where he left the wipes. They're in the same cupboard as his towels, which is weird and more random than he would have expected, but he pulls two out and brings both back to the bedroom.

Kurt wipes his over his skin and looks away from Blaine while he does so. He's still bared, the sheet bunched and abandoned next to him on the bed, but despite the picture of casual he makes, he's actually not.

Blaine wads his and tosses it into the wastebasket by his bed. Kurt follows, though his toss is far more careful.

"Do you want to do anything?" Blaine asks, sitting on the edge of the bed. He can feel the slight wet from the wipes drying slightly tacky on his stomach and idly rubs at it.

"I should put the leftovers away and clean up, but no."

"Look at you," Blaine says approvingly, and with some genuine wonder. "Sex mellows you out."

"Isn't it supposed to?" Kurt drawls with only the slightest lack of confidence, caving in to his own renewed skittishness and putting the sheet back over his lap.

Blaine shrugs and yawns wide, lying down next to Kurt on the bed again, over the covers while Kurt stays under. The contrast is weirdly nice, and Blaine knows without the layer of material he'd been staring unabashedly at Kurt's body, now that the arousal has faded and he can see Kurt without getting dizzy-hot again.

"Do you want to just lie down? Until you have to go?"

"That sounds nice," Kurt says mildly, his eyes heavy-lidded as he studies Blaine. 

"I'll set an alarm..." Blaine offers, blindly groping around in the opposite direction of where his phone ended up. 

There's a quiet chuckle from Kurt, and he just takes Blaine's hand in his own, holding it palm against palm. "I already did." 

"Good boy," Blaine says, patting him once on the shoulder, then slinking his free arm around Kurt's waist to keep him close. He closes his eyes, and he can feel Kurt melt further into the bed beside him. It strikes him how easy it is to be like this, with Kurt, and the cynical side of him can't help but introduce doubt -- is it too easy? In his school days he believed in love and romance and passion like they were discrete, holistically tangible concepts that he could slip in his pocket or twirl around his finger. They got complicated as he got older, but lying here, watching Kurt's chest rise and fall... it's simple. 

He's tucking his fingers into Kurt's side when the doorbell chimes. 

Kurt tenses, and he groans, heart skipping a beat as he remembers that he _can't_ remember the last person who'd rung the doorbell who hadn't been Kurt. He vaults out of bed, wobbly with the spike of nerves - Mia? Charlie? Mormons? _Social Services_? - and hunts for his clothes, his sweatpants a heap on the floor and his shirt near the bathroom. He opens a dresser drawer and puts on the first thing he finds; a raggedy Northwestern shirt with holes in the collar.

"Blaine?" Kurt asks, sounding worried.

Blaine's hands are absolutely not shaking. "It's all right. Just... put your clothes on?"

"Okay," Kurt says waveringly, and Blaine tugs his hair with both hands, overwhelmed, and takes a rallying breath.

The dining room is still strewn with their abandoned dinner, set with romantic intent that all but bleeds over the table. An open bottle of wine, _candles_ , oh God oh God, please let it be Mormons.

He can't bear to look out the peephole in case it's bad and his panic will rise. Blaine's face is as neutral as he can make it when he swings the door open.

It's Wes, standing there, bags under his eyes and a familiar if harried smile, his hair slicked -- well, quite a bit like Blaine's, longer than he's seen it before. For a moment Blaine nearly slumps with relief, but then he remembers that his apartment is still a den of sin and Wes wants to come inside. Where Kurt and the remainder of the dinner of seduction is waiting.

"Hey, Wes," Blaine manages casually, cocking his hip to lean against the doorframe. "Wasn't expecting you tonight."

"I can see that," Wes says, a tinge of exasperation as he raises his eyebrows at Blaine (or possibly Blaine's hair, or Blaine's trackpants). "I called you eight times. Is there any particular reason you didn't answer?"

"My phone," Blaine remembers. "I had it turned off, I'm so sorry. I was having a lazy day and I turned it off."

"Yes, I can see that too." He seems less edgy than he was a moment before, and oh, Blaine really hopes Wes didn't think he was intentionally avoiding him. Wes is good-natured but he can get prickly. He hates it when people are rude. "I'm not staying long, I have a hotel room in town," with the kind of emphasis that Kurt would put on _the town_ as it represents Lima, Ohio. "I thought I should check on you in person, in case there was something wrong."

"Oh. No, nothing wrong. A little tired from the charity dinner still, and incredibly sorry I accidentally ignored you, but I'm fine."

Wes nods and then pauses. "Courtesy says that you don't entertain guests on the stoop, Blaine," he says, punching Blaine in the stomach with how Kurtlike, almost _verbatim_ Kurtlike, he sounds. And not unlike his commanding, condescending tone back at Dalton, seated at the council table.

"Of course, come in, can I fix you a drink?" Blaine says, nearly stumbling away from the door to let Wes inside.

"A drink would just put me to sleep, but thank you."

Blaine can feel it in the air when Wes notices the dinner. He feels like a plucked string.

"Yes, I can see what a lazy evening you've had. Is that risotto? I always take the time to make it on my lazy evenings in, too." Wes raises an eyebrow. "And I set a second plate. When I'm home. Alone. Who is he?"

Blaine opens his mouth to reply, but he can't quite figure out what words to string together. He moves his jaw around, tugs on the hem of his t-shirt to straighten it out. 

In the bedroom, the bathroom door closes with a creak, and Blaine can hear the muted sound of water running from the sink.

Wes's eyebrow twitches higher. "He's here?"

He thinks about saying no for the briefest of moments, but it's not like he can play off the sound like it came from next door. "Yes," he admits somewhat miserably. 

"Oh," Wes says, articulately. "Well, I apologize for the inconvenient timing, but maybe this will encourage you to pick up your phone." Before Blaine can wince at that all over again, Wes turns up the corners of his mouth in a wry smile. "And I do believe you promised to inform me of any developments in your love life."

"It's-- it's not," Blaine tries. "I'm not seeing anyone, this is-- Not that. He's just a friend."

Kurt strides out from the bedroom, and Blaine has never been so relieved to see anyone fully dressed and unruffled, not a strand of hair out of place, not the slightest hint of a telling blush or, God forbid, a hickey, in his life. His relief is tempered by more panic, what is Kurt _doing_ , this is the worst possible thing. He's immaculate, but he was also in Blaine's bedroom, and there are wine glasses and candles.

Wes would never stand for Blaine's gentleman caller lurking alone in Blaine's bedroom like Mrs Rochester in the attic. Kurt would end up out here for introductions some way or another. 

Blaine concentrates on looking as unfazed as possible. He swallows. "Kurt, this is Wes Montgomery. Wes, Kurt Hummel. He's one of our lodgers at Courage House. I've been, uh, helping him out with some numbers for Glee club. They have a Glee club there at McKinley again -- do you remember when we were up against them at Regionals? They had that powerhouse blonde."

"April Rhodes," Wes says, and Blaine's not at all surprised that he still remembers her name.

"Did we beat you?" Kurt asks with an easy smile, like he has these conversations in Blaine's living room all the time. He's acting too comfortable and too cheerful. Blaine wants to go crawl underneath his bed and come out some time next year. He has a feeling like a sink hole beneath him that he's not doing a great job of hiding it.

"Yep. But it was close." Wes has far too much self-control to let loose whatever is really on his mind, but Blaine swears he can see the lecture starting to weigh down his friend's tongue. He's also keeping his attention on Kurt, not sparing Blaine a glance. 

"I should be heading back," Kurt declares, without balking, his tone too perfect again. "It was nice meeting you."

"Likewise," Wes says evenly.

Kurt's shoes are by the door, and there's an awkward, lagging silence while he steps into them, pulling at the tongue gently so he doesn't bend them out of shape in the process. He makes quick work of the laces and stands, walking back over to pick up his bag from near the couch. Kurt presses it to his chest and wraps both arms around it rather than slinging it over his shoulder. He heads to the front door, Blaine following him when he remembers how to work his legs without them buckling under him, and they both skirt glances at each other when he opens the door, locking only for a moment. 

"Thank you," Kurt begins, his lower voice the first sign of what is really going on, and what had taken place in Blaine's bedroom not an hour ago. He's standing a respectable personal bubble of space away. "For helping me with my song, Mr Anderson." 

"It was my pleasure, Kurt." He offers a smile that he hopes, _hopes_ conveys the full, true meaning of his words. The distance of fear and the necessity of _Mr Anderson_ , fuck, how bizarre is that, is a wall of glass. "Good -- good luck, and have a safe walk home."

"I will," Kurt says, smile freshly painted on, tossing another look and a nod to Wes on his way out of the door.

Blaine sends him off into the cold night, his breath making billows of frost in the air, dismissed and alone and having just been warm in Blaine's bed. He has to close his eyes and deal with the ache in his chest for a second before he can shut the door, shut out Kurt's disappearing silhouette.

Wes is waiting for him in the kitchen, hands tucked into his pocket with a measured casualness. His lips are pressed into a thin line, and he's looking absently towards the collection of picture frames on the other side of the room, but his eyes are distant, the gaze of someone hypnotized and sightless.

"Still sure about that drink?" Blaine asks quietly, as harmlessly as he can, even as anxiety swells and chills him like a gale wind. 

"Maybe just a glass of water." Wes turns to face him, his expression as tight and guarded as Blaine's ever seen it. The silence is thick as Blaine goes for the drink, and every ice cube that clinks into the glass gives away the shaking of his hands.

He can't meet Wes's gaze as he passes it over -- he just sees his hands, maybe a little smaller than average, blunt nails, wide knuckles and a fading tan. Kurt's hands are bigger, he's noticed, and they have _presence_. His seem so useless right now.

"Thank you." It's his apartment, but Wes spreads his hand towards the living room sofa, indicating that they should sit. Blaine follows like there's a tug on his leash, but it feels like closing in on a guillotine.

"I..." Wes starts, dropping his elbows onto his knees and staring into the empty space between, shaking his head. "What the hell is going on? Blaine, he looks fourteen." His head comes up, forehead creased and eyes thoroughly incredulous. "Is he?"

" _No_ ," spits out of him in a defensive tone he isn't able to contain. It's a sharp barb; at Kurt's first steps into Courage House, tilting his head to glance both ways down the hallway like he was checking that the street's safe to cross, Blaine pegged him as fourteen. Fifteen, maybe. "He's seventeen."

"Seventeen," Wes repeats in disbelief.

Too late, Blaine realizes that his quick defense is damning. He knew he'd crumble if Wes truly saw through his weak excuses -- he can't _lie_ , not baldly - but he didn't know he would dig his own grave and happily jump down into it. "He's more of an adult than most people I know," he says, regretting the way he sounds like a father singing his son's praises. 

"Even so," Wes is unrelenting, "have you... have you even _thought_ about this? What this looks like?" His eyes turn hard, harder than Blaine's ever seen them. "Tell me this hasn't happened before."

" _Of course not_ ," Blaine denies with such vehemence that he nearly gags on the words. He's not prepared for how much the veiled accusation prickles. "You know goddamned well that I'm not like that. No."

Wes adopts a more conciliatory tone, but he's still visibly strained. "I know. I don't know what to think. I see -- _this_ and... it's all rather hard to swallow." He exhales, looks up to catch Blaine's eyes. "How long?"

Blaine tries to gather up enough information to answer -- how long has he known Kurt? How long since he realized he was attracted to him? How long have they been -- like this? How long since they first had sexual contact? It's all a fluid fucking mess and he can't explain it to himself on the best days, and when he opens his mouth he doesn't know what he's going to say, but Wes cuts him off before he can. "You know what? Never mind. The less I know, the better." 

"No--" Blaine protests, "You have a right to understand. What you saw--"

"I don't _want_ to know, Blaine. All I need you to tell me is that you're aware of the consequences should this get out. That you've _thought_ about this, that you're not just lonely and trying to deal with turning forty in the next few years. That you know what it means for him and his future." Wes carries on, laying out the facts he's gleaned from years of watching Blaine fumble his way in and out of relationships ass over teakettle. "You're impulsive, you keep your heart out on your doorstep, and you could never say no to a charity case. Is this any different?" His tone suggests that he doesn't think so, and his raised eyebrows are slamming his lack of faith in Blaine home like a hammer to a nail.

Blaine isn't sure if he should feel offended or ashamed. Twinges of both bite at him, and he pushes his mouth closed in a firm line before opening it again. "No. Kurt is not a charity case, and I'm not having some delusional midlife crisis. I am actually capable of making judgment calls, and I can do so without turning into a cynic." His pointed is perilously close to petulant. 

"You're risking your career," Wes points out unnecessarily, and with a minute shake of his head. He drags his fingers through his hair, a move so startlingly un-Wes. It's still _weird_ to see him with longer hair. "Which you know." He sighs, shifting his weight on the couch like he's considering his options, then starts to stand up. "I don't have to tell you that." 

"No, you don't." Blaine says it quietly, like he still fears for lines he could cross. He gets to his feet a moment after Wes. 

"I'm... I'm going to go now," Wes says with a delicate finality, casting once last tired glance across the room. "I'll talk to you later." He opens the door, eyeing Blaine, and takes an unbalanced step towards him that brings his hand up to Blaine's shoulder. "Take care." He double-takes at his own hand and it is seriously awkward until he pulls it back like he can't believe he did it in the first place.

Then he's gone.

Blaine clicks the lock behind him and leans his back against the closed door for a complete lack of something better to do. The disquiet lingers for a moment before he exhales Wes and Kurt from his mind. He considers the leftovers sitting out and the pots in the sink. They'll spoil if he doesn't tend to them soon.


	7. Chapter Seven

"What's the occasion?" Kurt asks with an arched brow, giving Mia a once-over.

Mia doesn't look up. She's filling out the end-of-shift checklists with a clinical proficiency -- quick checkmarks with her glitter pen, then initials on the bottom. 

"Occasion? No occasion." 

He takes a seat across the table from her, one leg crossed over the other. "No, no." Kurt waves his pointer finger back and forth. "There's an occasion. I know an occasion when I see one."

With exaggerated patience, Mia looks up and clunks her pen down on the table. She leans back in her chair and props her elbow up, observing him with one hitched eyebrow.

Kurt goes on. "You're made up like one of those girls at the Mac counter. I like what you did with the blush, but try some more contouring next time." He bites his lip with a half-wince. "Watch the lipstick, though. You're right on the line between en vogue and drag queen." A pause, and he acknowledges, "Not that it would be the first time that happened here."

"Wow," she says, dry as paper. "I bow to your years of experience with cosmetics. Maybe I'll let you lend a hand next time." She straightens up her checklists, seemingly amused.

"Next time?" Kurt sits up straighter, uncrosses his legs. "Aha. There _is_ an occasion."

Mia chuckles; a fond, raspy sound. "Sorry, Kurt. I'm not supposed to mix my job and my personal life. It's highly unprofessional." She's teasing him, mostly; last Thanksgiving when Blaine insisted on giving her the weekend off, she treated everyone to a rousing re-enactment of the dysfunctional, slightly inebriated screaming match that took place at her mother's dining room table. She was scheduled for the full weekend at time and a half before she could threaten to take them through round two. 

Blaine stops hovering in the entry to the kitchen and walks to the sink, but Kurt's too intent on grilling Mia to look up and acknowledge him. Kurt leans across the table and drops his chin into his hands. "Aren't we supposed to be bonding? Isn't that part of your job? I'm an at-risk youth, you know."

"She gets overtime for that," Blaine says.

"News to me," Mia quips as she gets up and plops the paperwork down in front of Blaine. "There you go. I'm out." She shoots a fond wink to Kurt. "Try not to develop too many harmful coping mechanisms before I see you again. I know how you at-risk youths are." 

"Oh, no. Alcoholism is terrible for your skin."

"Yes, because bad skin is the worst alcoholism has to offer." He waits a moment to see if Kurt has something to volley back, but he doesn't take the bait. "Don't worry, I'll keep an eye on him." Blaine gives her a quick smile. "Have a good night." 

"Yes, have a fabulous time with -- well, whatever you're doing."

Mia gives Kurt one last amused glance before she grabs her purse and jacket and heads out, and Blaine hums in deliberation. "Do you think she's got a date or something?"

Kurt sniffs and pushes back from the table, going to the fridge for a bottle of water with the letter K marked on the white lid in black marker. 

An apprehensive but not entirely surprised feeling is settling over Blaine's shoulders like a yoke and he goes on, testing the waters. "We're pals. I wonder why she didn't tell me."

"Gee," Kurt murmurs, licking water from his lips. "I do wonder why."

It's an airy dismissal that hangs in the air as he leaves, and Blaine grits his teeth, an irritated, tightly wound part of him wanting to lash out and overturn the chair Kurt was sitting in. This is just what he didn't want. 

\--

He lets Kurt coolly ignore him for a few more hours, and for the most part his behavior is subtle. He keeps to his room with Melissa, coming out to make himself a mug of tea and to say hello when Charlie pops by for his shift. Blaine's off now; he was only on for a filler hour between Mia's shift ending and Charlie's beginning, since Charlie had an appointment, but he's not about to go home and pretend like everything's fine. He should have stopped by last night with some bullshit excuse and talked to Kurt. He didn't, his head too full, and by the time he slipped into bed at one in the morning with the tang of Kurt's shampoo lingering on his pillows, he knew he'd screwed up. He maybe underestimated how hard. 

It's an hour to dinner when Blaine raps his knuckles on Kurt's door. Melissa's the one who answers. Of course.

"Kurt, I was thinking of taking a walk. Want to come with me?"

Kurt's expression is at once blank and haughty, his eyes giving everything away. "Maybe not tonight. I have homework."

"It's Friday," Blaine points out, chipper and unassuming with his hands sliding into his pockets. "Can you work on it after dinner? I could really use the company."

Melissa tosses a pillow at him on her way back. "Why not? You've been in here all day."

Kurt levels her an unappreciative look, but he rises, snags his coat, and buttons it with military precision. "After you, then." 

Blaine can't find anything to say as he leads them down the stairs and out the front door. Kurt keeps a step or two behind him, his arms crossed and eyes ahead at nothing. Blaine tries not to keep his attention trained on Kurt as they walk, craning his neck over and over again only to find him with the same rigid posture and pinched expression that shutters further every time he sees Blaine look back.

Leaves rustle along the sidewalk and a damp one sticks to the toe of his shoe as he walks. It's not cold, really, but the wind is picking up and Blaine didn't bring a coat. He was too focused on getting Kurt out of the door and taking the situation in hand before it became even more indecipherable.

"I love fall," he says. He's never been great at silence, and they have to start somewhere. "I think it's my favorite season after spring." He takes a deep breath of air, the crispness of it filling his lungs with only a mildly disgusting tinge of exhaust fumes and leaf rot. "Pretty colors."

Kurt ignores him totally, as Blaine half expected he would. "Where are we going?"

"The park." It isn't much of one, just a large swath of grass that the city maintains with a swingset and a jungle gym plunked down in the middle as an afterthought. There are trees, though, and it's a neutral place to take kids when they're about to throw a rock through a wall. Blaine likes it, and it's got to be close to deserted right now.

He watches Kurt for a reaction, getting a nonchalant pull of Kurt's right shoulder. To Blaine's eye, as keen as it can be after months of studying Kurt, who is mystifying not only because he's _Kurt_ but because he's a teenager, he seems a fraction less coiled up. Kurt doesn't like going anywhere without knowing his destination, even if it's to the park. Blaine's never throwing him a surprise party, that's for sure.

When they get there, it _is_ pretty deserted. A mother is pushing her kid in a stroller along the perimeter of the park's path, cell phone tucked close to her ear. 

Kurt immediately veers toward the swings, and Blaine follows him. There are two, side by side, the chains suspending them starting to rust. Kurt, after a perfunctory and distasteful wipe of the seat, perches himself on one of them.

Blaine walked to the park without any real plan, only knowing that privacy and distance from the house and fresh air would help him fix this, but he assumed there would be far more woolgathering and planning on the walk. Sighing, Blaine stands behind Kurt and to his right, taking him in, still thinking. Kurt's fingers, wound around the swing's chains, tighten. A slow gust of wind drags him slightly forward, and Kurt's body curves into it, a pendulum on its first tilt.

Kurt squawks when Blaine gently pushes at his back to get his momentum going, and the toes of his shoes skid along the gravelly ground to keep him where he is. _Oops_ is an understatement, and Blaine backs away, cringing at himself. "What are you _doing_?" he demands, turning a slitted glare on Blaine, cheeks pink.

"I thought you might want to swing," Blaine explains, feeling embarrassed, but also knowing that he's achieved an ice-breaker. His impulse was just to get Kurt to swing, since it's a fun thing to do and Kurt needs fun, but some forward-thinking part of his subconscious had ulterior motives and he can't regret their success. "Since you were on a swing."

"I am not _five_ ," Kurt hisses. "And you're not being cute. Why don't you try acting like an adult?" 

Kurt's very deliberately being contrary, now. It comes off more haughty than stinging, and at least Kurt's responding to him.

"Sorry," Blaine says. "Sorry I thought you might want to swing, since you were _on one_ ," and he can't help the edge of amused condescension that slips in. He looks down at the crown of Kurt's head and offers more directly, "I'm sorry about last night, too."

Kurt keeps his gaze down, watches his heels scrape across the gravel as he moves back and forth, not swinging but not stationary. "Well," Kurt says like he's been tasked with giving an official statement, "at least you know you've got something to be sorry for."

Blaine squeezes his fingers around the chains of Kurt's swing and takes himself over to the free swing with a frustrated sigh. "Of course I'm sorry. Of course. But what was I supposed to do?" His hips don't fit comfortably in the width of the swing, and when he tries to adjust his weight his wallet digs into his tailbone. The day feels too long. He wants to go home to his couch with a cup of decaf and Kurt's head propped on his shoulder, no television, no radio, not even the dulled roar of cars passing by in the world outside of his apartment. "I'm not good at thinking on my feet. What, because I didn't take the opportunity to introduce you to Wes as my acerbic-but-really-quite-wonderful jailbait lover and ask if you got your shirt tucked in straight I'm a heartless bastard?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Kurt snaps, pointedly staring into the distance at the mother and child as they start in on another lap.

"What would you have had me do?" Blaine asks as he shifts uncomfortably again, determined to get them onto some kind of middle ground. He studies the line of Kurt's profile, from the slope of his nose down to the proud set of his chin, looking for even the most microscopic of reactions.

"Nothing. There's nothing you have to do," Kurt says, with the brusque snap of a book being closed. He's brushing it off; Blaine can't _possibly_ get it right, no matter if Kurt takes his precious time to explain it to him.

"Oh, c'mon, Kurt, just _talk_ to me." He's up against a brick wall right now, and he hasn't even got a chisel. "I'm sorry. I don't know what else to say to you. I mean it. Do you think I wanted it to end like that?"

"I know you didn't," Kurt says with less vigor, his eyes closing and head bowing fractionally. "There was nothing else you could have done. I know that." Kurt's said it out loud, acknowledged the facts of the situation, validated how shitty that night had been, but neither of them feel any better, Blaine bets. "Also, for the record, I am not jailbait."

Blaine's incredulous noise isn't so much objection as it is disbelief that Kurt is choosing to go _there_. "So, what, I should have introduced you as my acerbic and wonderful, but _questionably appropriate_ , lover?"

"Stop that," Kurt says, turning eyes on him that are genuinely weary and upset. "I meant that the age of consent is sixteen. I'm seventeen. I'm tired of your --" he flicks a scornful hand -- "Humbert Humbert complex. This would work a lot better if you weren't so invested in beating yourself up over it."

"I--" Instinctively, Blaine goes to defend himself, to instruct Kurt how to see the actual picture of who he is instead of his own interpretation of shape and form, but -- it's true, he does that, it's _him_. He presses his lips together, gives a curt nod. "Yeah. I... kind of have a habit of doing that, don't I? I think you're going to have to call me out on it."  He reaches over to jostle the chain holding up Kurt's swing, trying on the smallest smirk. "Which, knowing you, could end up being a full-time occupation." 

Kurt's shoulders slope in, tired and frayed. "I didn't want to make it like this," he admits, letting his eyes travel over to Blaine's outstretched legs. "I knew I was being an idiot all day, but I couldn't help myself. I felt so sick. I didn't -- I didn't want last night to be like that."

Blaine's feet strike the gravel, propelled by guilt and regret ( _stop that_ ) that feels bodily heavy.  "God, Kurt, neither did I." His voice is low, intense, intimate, ragged around the edges. "It was so good, _so_ good, and then it was -- awful."

Kurt's study of his legs comes to an end, and it's like he can't stand to look at any part of Blaine, even his shoes, to confess in a chiffon-weak voice, "I wanted to kiss you good night."

"Oh, _Kurt_ \-- come here." Blaine feels himself splinter; the slim distance between them is too great and he lurches for the cold chain of Kurt's swing, pulling it sideways toward him so hard it hurts his hand, knocking Kurt against his side.

Kurt hums a warning as their swings clamor and shake on the bar suspending them. Their knees bump together hard, but Blaine's ready. He catches Kurt's upper thigh to hold him in place, mute as he searches for the right words to express how, basically, his chest just tried to fill up and burst.

"It's okay," Kurt murmurs, curling his cool hand around Blaine's wrist, anchoring them together. "We'll be better next time," he reassures, stroking his thumb back and forth across the underside of Blaine's wrist. 

Blaine nudges forward, scraping the late afternoon stubble on his jaw against Kurt's cheek, nuzzling into the warm valley of his neck, and allowing himself a deep inhale. He tries not to linger, just threads his fingers through the hair at the nape of Kurt's neck and pushes a rough, possessive kiss to the top of his head. Kurt, as much as the metal between them will allow, leans into it, bowing his head until strands of his hair tickle Blaine's nose.

"I didn't want to let you leave," Blaine admits, face pressed so close he feels it when Kurt twitches.

Blaine prolongs the contact as long as he can, and Kurt makes an inscrutable noise and clutches at Blaine's shirt. It's only for a moment, then his hand drops away and the rest of him follows. Kurt gets to his feet with a little hop and holds his hand out to Blaine, palm-up, to help him up too. 

Blaine rises, steady on his feet and Kurt's hand secure in his. "Guess it's time to head back." 

Kurt gives a nod, once more patient and equanimous. It's a relief and puts Blaine on solid ground again after the way Kurt's mood made him totter with unease. 

They walk back together so close that their shoulder bump, and as soon as they step past the confines of the park and back into a more populated, broader world, Kurt drops his hand. Blaine doesn't mind; he's registers in the back of his mind that Kurt is the one who thought to do it. He keeps Blaine from functioning properly, being able to manage anything more than putting one foot in front of the other when they're so close. The street is dangerous, cars driving by -- anyone could see them. 

Still, even without touch, there's something suspended between them. They made no real promises but somehow, something new is settling in. Blaine keeps his eyes locked on the pavement ahead of him, hoping no one can see his face, because it's giving it -- _them_ \-- away completely.  
\--

Blaine inches the window of the upstairs bathroom open, looking out for a moment to appreciate the last remnants of fall, then squares his shoulders and gives a critical eye to the remains of his afternoon project. For a bathroom in constant use by a half dozen teenagers, it isn't as gnarly as it could be -- no mold monsters creeping fingers out at him -- but it's only through routine maintenance that it stays that way. Old houses take care, and it wasn't until halfway through his first year running Courage House that he realized if he wanted something done to his standards and didn't want to go bankrupt in the process, well, it was best to do it himself.

A toolbox, spools of electrical tape, several drills, a stack of home repair manuals checked out from the local library, and hours of DIY Youtube videos later, Blaine could unclog a drain, fix a window, and put a door back on its hinges with the best of them. He still calls in professionals for the bigger jobs, but he can manage almost everything the house and the kids can throw at him (or that the kids can throw at the house).

He feels a joint pop when he goes down on one knee to check out the cracks along the base of the bathtub, caulking gun waiting by his side. He stripped the old caulking away that morning, and now he's ready to finish the job but -- wincing, he tries to shift to a more comfortable position, but it's not coming, no relief to be had on the hard tiled floor, and it's then he concludes that he's practically doing the kids a disservice by not enlisting their help.

"Hey," Blaine yells out the bathroom door as he gets back up on his feet. There's no response, as expected, so he starts down the stairs to the ground floor. "Some of you guys should come up here and help me with this caulk."

The dull buzz of conversation from downstairs comes to a halt, and it's Tracy that yells back, "...Help you with _what_?"

Tracy, Mia, Tom and Kurt are sitting in little clusters throughout the living room, heads all swiveled to Blaine's direction. He wavers in the threshold to the living room for a minute, totally thrown, but then what Tracy said catches up with him and he feels like an idiot and superior to all of them and their twelve year old minds all at once.

"Oh, come on, you guys." He rolls his eyes. " _Caulk_. As in home repair? The bathtub is in dire need of a _caulking_ ," he pronounces with deliberate emphasis. Blaine can see Mia's shoulders shaking with silent laughter and folds his arms over his chest.

"Why is this my problem?" Tom asks. "You're the one who pays the property tax."

"Why is it _mine_?" Blaine counters. "I don't use that bathroom. I fix everything that you guys break. I don't see why you can't help me with this one thing." Blaine's running out of excuses that don't involve _my knees aren't as kind to me as they were in my twenties_. He'd never live it down, and he's trying not to think about it.

"Hey, we help," Tracy protests, her smile too big. "I just prefer not to handle _caulk_ if I can avoid it."

"We all know you'd rather have your fingers up a drain," Tom drawls.

"You wash the dishes twice a week," Kurt says, ignoring the bait that everyone else seems to have latched onto. "Less, if you can cajole someone else into it."

"I also mop, bitch," Tracy snaps, and Mia rockets up off the couch like a jack in the box, heading off any potential fireworks as she strides toward Blaine.

"Everyone in this house is awesome and I'm so happy to work here," she says, coated in artificial sweetener.  "I don't want any of you precious children to strain yourselves. I'll help."

"Mia..." Blaine casts a meaningful eye to the room full of teenagers who could really use an attitude adjustment and some practical skills to take with them. It's strange that Kurt hadn't offered to help; he usually elbows people out of the way when it comes to proving himself useful and superior, but he barely glanced up from his book during the whole exchange, one finger resting on his cheek as he cradled his chin on his hand.

Ten minutes in a cramped bathroom would be more time alone than they've had in days, but Blaine isn't _pining_ or anything. Maybe Kurt's especially attached to his current outfit and doesn't feel like risking it. Maybe he's tired. He looks tired, now that Blaine's squinting at him from across the room.

"If we do it, it takes ten minutes. If we make one of them help, we'll be in that bathroom all night." She pushes past him and tromps up the stairs. She's pretty slight, but the stairs groan and thump under her two-at-a-time ascent.

"Thanks, guys," Blaine says. He doesn't have his father's patented disapproving tone down quite yet, but a few more years of this and he might nail it.

By the time he's at the top of the stairs, Mia's hair is up in a sloppy bun and she's got a caulking gun in one hand, scanning the instructions. "It's pretty easy," Blaine says, leaning against the sink. "As you can probably tell."

"I know how to use a caulking gun, dude," Mia says. "I've never used this kind before. Did you get the cheapest brand or what?"

"Um," Blaine says, because there wasn't a Youtube video on recommended brands, and yes, his budget can only stretch so far. 

She chuckles at his expense with a fond shake of her head. "You take the left side and I'll take the right. Whoever makes it to the middle the first is the winner." She spreads her knees to have a steadier base. "Which will be me."

"You know," Blaine says, going down onto his own knees and wondering why he bothered to go downstairs at all if it means he's _still_ going to get sore. Usually when he gets on his knees there's some inherent reward system in place. Not so, right now. "You'd make some incredibly helpless and femme woman _so_ happy."

"Story of my life," Mia mutters, the cap to the gun between her teeth. "If only I swung that way. My talents would finally be appreciated."

Blaine laughs at her, and he fumbles the gun, but whatever, it's caulk, it doesn't require a very skilled hand, especially when there's protective masking tape involved. "Stop showing off," he says, smoothing down his sloppy line of the material. 

"I'm sorry, am I making you feel inferior?" Mia says, pulling the cap from her mouth and tossing it into the bathtub in what seems like a split second, and then goes back to the job with her eyebrows knotted in concentration. "Apparently I do that to men."

"Again, you'd be the best lesbian," Blaine sighs, inching his way along while Mia deftly makes her way toward the middle. "You're a motorcycle away from spearheading Dykes on Bikes."

She tenses, and for one moment Blaine thinks he's gone too far, but she's just stopping to readjust after a tiny mistake. "Being straight is so hard for me," she whines, tilting her head to the right to give him a sly smile. "Seriously, you don't know my pain."

"Mmn, yes I do. I date men. I know what you're dealing with." His line isn't getting any straighter, so he sits back on his haunches; it's not like he's got a chance of winning their little contest anyway.

"Look at us, bonding like this." Mia's nearly finished with her side. "Talking about boys like we have some." 

Blaine chuckles and sweeps his hair back into place with his forearm. "Yeah, well. It's a sacrifice for the greater good." Or it used to be, at least. He's not sure what it is now. It's gotten pretty blurry. 

Mia's quiet but it feels like assent. "Lately they've been doing better."

Blaine pulls in a breath, hands on his knees, and bites his lip. "Have they been? I feel like I never know what's going on here from one day to the next."

"Fuck, neither do I. It's never consistent. Michael leaving was bad, but Justin was worse."

"I know." Some of them are volatile, unpredictable, at risk. Some of them foster kernels of hatred in what's supposed to be a safe place. Blaine felt more revulsion toward Justin than he did when he had to call the cops on a kid who tried to shatter Blaine's windshield with a steel pipe. Blaine had locked the door and waited for sirens; there are no sirens and handcuffs when someone is casually cruel, only paperwork and suitcases. "I feel like, I don't know, like I should feel i>worse about kicking him out than I actually do."

Mia shrugs. "You tried your best. It's not like you give up on every hard luck case who comes through the door, either." Blaine nods, watching her in silence for a minute, but she's not done. "He was such a horrible, horrible jackass. You did everyone a favor."

"I hope _something_ out of this sunk in for him."

Mia finishes and rolls her shoulders as she sits up. Her face isn't blank, but it's usually filled with an easily nameable expression, and right now Blaine can't read it. "It did or it didn't, Blaine." She turns her deep-set brown eyes on him. "Did you give him your 'prejudice is just ignorance' speech?"

"Um, yes?" He instinctively prickles, not liking where this is going. "How is that a bad thing?"

"It's not. For some people, that works. It helps. For kids like Justin, you shouldn't waste your breath."

She stands up, brushing off her knees. Blaine stares up at her, feeling a little winded. "So I shouldn't even _try_ to get through to some of them? Just – let them... stagnate?" 

She tugs the hairband out of her hair and redoes the bun, not looking at him, her jaw tight. This isn't a fight, it's barely even a disagreement, but it's the weirdest Blaine's ever felt around Mia and he doesn't like it. "Giving them Pollyanna speeches works, sometimes. Being there for them works, _sometimes_. But a lot of the time we're just somewhere safe to stay. And I think you know that as well as I do."

 _Pollyanna speeches_. He's gaping at her when she looks down at him and gives him an apologetic but sincere smile. "I..." He clears his throat. "Maybe."

"It's over and we're better. That's what matters."

"Right," he says, still processing.

Mia cocks her hip and gazes down at the tub. "Look at that. I won our little competition. No one is surprised."

Blaine clears his throat again, regaining some footing. "Like I said, Dykes on Bikes."

She gives him a warm grin. "Leave me a flyer and I'll think about it."

It feels exceptionally crowded in the bathroom even after she leaves, and Blaine tries to shake off the strange claustrophobia as he kneels to finish the last of his side of the tub.


End file.
